I put some aftermarket door lock actuators in my friend's integra. He got some really cheap *** actuators from ebay. Anyway they hit ridiculously hard and he wants to know if I can soften them up. I'm thinking I can probably put a resistor inline with the lock or unlock wire. Anyone done this? What ohm resistor should I use or is this not going to work?

 

Open them up and put little pillows inside??

Seriously though... I'd probably start with a small value resistor, but higher wattage (like one of those 5 or 10 watt ceramic blocks) and increase the value of the resistor until it's softer?? Dunno how you would calculate what Ohm value to start out at though...

 

What is the make and model of the alarm, maybe the door lock/unlock pulse can be programmed to a shorter pulse. 94

 

What about playing with the position of the unit so it does not stress out the car

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by wrx-killer-Sti eater &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">What about playing with the position of the unit so it does not stress out the car</TD></TR></TABLE> I would assume that he has already done that, [actuator as parallel with lock linkage rod as possible, as few, and small, bends in connecting rod as possible, and "centering" the actuators connection to the cars lock linkage].
If not, we can rib him about it for a week. 94

BTW, if nothing else works, a resistor on one of the actuator lines should do it.

 

Resistor in series and cap in parallel will bring up the voltage slowly. Would need to know the current draw to calculate the voltage rise time.

 

If I wanted to get all crazy I would. I'm looking for the quick answer. This is something I want to bang out in 15 minutes. Free time is very rare in this season of mobile electronics.

I always mount the actuator so that the movement of the arm is exactly the same as the movement of the bar when you pull the lock manually. Unfortunately this causes them to knock harder than if they're not parallel.

It's a Viper 5000 and AFAIK the default is the shortest pulse.

 

Then it seems like the only option is resistors. 94

 

I have two extra ones that I can give you to to fix your problem. I can't drive to sd but can meet you half way.

 

Extra ones what? Resistors?! I have hundreds.

Okay I guess I'll just go trial and error on resistor values.