-
Welcome to the new NAXJA Forum! If your password does not work, please use "Forgot your password?" link on the log-in page. Please feel free to reach out to [email protected] if we can provide any assistance.
What is this silver tube?
- Thread starter Magus2727
- Start date
Magus2727
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Draper, UT
That's what I figured it was. Looked on rock auto for time delay and that a the exact part... but what does it do?
- Location
- Rainy side of Washington
It is probably a bimetallic switch based time delay setup for the lights. Bimetallic strips flex when heated because one side is one metal and the other is another, and they expand at different rates, they're generally wrapped with a heating element that makes them flex when power is applied and the amount of time they take to open or close depends on how hot the element gets how fast.
Also, there is a lot of electronics misinformation being thrown around in here... to clear things up, a capacitor does not have an anode and a cathode (that's a diode you are thinking of) - though some have positive and negative terminals. Also a part that buzzes when the door is open is a door buzzer, not a relay.
Most old "clicky style" (the ones you can hear) blinker elements are a bimetallic strip wired so that when the lights are off, current flows through the heating element, heating the bimetallic strip and flexing it into a contact that turns the lights on and the heating element off. Then the bimetallic strip starts flexing back, turns the light off and the heating element back on. This repeats forever...
I guess the light timer is the same, except it isn't set up to keep repeating, it goes once and stops.
Also, there is a lot of electronics misinformation being thrown around in here... to clear things up, a capacitor does not have an anode and a cathode (that's a diode you are thinking of) - though some have positive and negative terminals. Also a part that buzzes when the door is open is a door buzzer, not a relay.
Most old "clicky style" (the ones you can hear) blinker elements are a bimetallic strip wired so that when the lights are off, current flows through the heating element, heating the bimetallic strip and flexing it into a contact that turns the lights on and the heating element off. Then the bimetallic strip starts flexing back, turns the light off and the heating element back on. This repeats forever...
I guess the light timer is the same, except it isn't set up to keep repeating, it goes once and stops.
Yep. What kastein said.
The bimetalic switch heats up when the lights are on and completes the circuit with a parallel ground. Once you close the doors, the current through the bimetalic strip is cut off and the strip cools. Once it cools enough, it flips back breaking the circuit and turns the lights off.
The bimetalic switch heats up when the lights are on and completes the circuit with a parallel ground. Once you close the doors, the current through the bimetalic strip is cut off and the strip cools. Once it cools enough, it flips back breaking the circuit and turns the lights off.
heyhar
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- PA (near Poconos)
It's the ballast for the light around the ignition key slot. Open any door with a light switch on it, including the tailgate, if equipped with a light switch, and the light around the key will glow. Close the door you opened, and it will time-out and go off. I know '95 and '96 have this, unsure of '97 and later. Yeah, it'll burn ya if it's been on for a while.
- Location
- MilkyWay Galaxy
I would be a little more careful about making sweeping statements like that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolytic_capacitor
"Aluminum electrolytic capacitors are constructed from two conducting aluminium foils, one of which is coated with an insulating oxide layer, and a paper spacer soaked in electrolyte. The foil insulated by the oxide layer is the anode while the liquid electrolyte and the second foil acts as the cathode"
- Location
- Rainy side of Washington
Ok, you got me.. i'll put it this way... in the eleven years since I started tech school and 20 years since I started learning about electronics, I've never once heard someone actually call them that, nor seen A/K* marked on a PCB, nor anode and cathode marked on the outside of such a capacitor.
I've seen hundreds of thousands of capacitors and PCBs marked with plus and minus, though.
Most techs will look at you funny if you say anode and cathode talking about a capacitor just the same as they would look at you funny if you talk about anodes and cathodes on batteries. It may be strictly accurate but you're never gonna see it.
* don't ask me why it is a K not a C. I guess nerds can't spell :roflmao:
I've seen hundreds of thousands of capacitors and PCBs marked with plus and minus, though.
Most techs will look at you funny if you say anode and cathode talking about a capacitor just the same as they would look at you funny if you talk about anodes and cathodes on batteries. It may be strictly accurate but you're never gonna see it.
* don't ask me why it is a K not a C. I guess nerds can't spell :roflmao:
Magus2727
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Draper, UT
So this acts only as the timer for the ring light around the key cylinder? Thanks!
I said anode and cathode because I usually work with wet-slug tantalum capacitors which have been called out on the data sheets like that or ceramics which don't have a polarity. But since I don't think any one uses ceramics for automotive applications I thought it best to call it out that way.
I always thought you can / could call out abide and cathode on any two leaded device that has polarity.
I said anode and cathode because I usually work with wet-slug tantalum capacitors which have been called out on the data sheets like that or ceramics which don't have a polarity. But since I don't think any one uses ceramics for automotive applications I thought it best to call it out that way.
I always thought you can / could call out abide and cathode on any two leaded device that has polarity.
- Location
- MilkyWay Galaxy
Probably depends what the nerd's credentials are that you are talking to.
I still have trouble with the flip flop that goes on in what is called the anode and cathode in a battery, as the answers changes when you go from charging to discharging. By the way, you either typed too fast, or your spell checker interpreter got you,
I assume abide should have been anode.
- Location
- MilkyWay Galaxy
LOL, I had a Chemistry professor that said repeatedly, no matter how many times students would ask again, "There is NO ALWAYS and NO NEVER in the world of chemistry". "if you hit it with a big enough hammer, anything can happen" (referring to chemical reactions).
Over the years, I discovered that to be true of so many other things in the real world. I have spent a great deal of my live learning about the exceptions to the rules (as they tend to sometimes be the most obscure and most interesting), and I almost never (LMAO) us the words always or never by themselves, LOL, for that reason. Another odd one is how in the world of tech and science (or even regulations), a word like "Vector" can have a bunch of entirely different meanings, by definition, and so if you stick two or more different scientists, engineers, technicians, in the same room and start tossing around technical words like "Vector" (or anode, cathode) you can get entirely different interpretations of what they think a third person just said. Kinda like the words Bad and Good nowadays, LOL!!!
Last edited:
