Wiring schema blogs

You must have come across this irritating situation while driving at night when you find the headlight focus from an opposite vehicle falling straight in your eyes, making things difficult to assess, giving rise to a situation of a collision or some kind of possible accident.

Incidentally, the driver of the opposite vehicle might be going through the same situation due to the headlight focus from your vehicle.

Such situations are normally tackled by using manual dipper switch mechanism, where the driver is prompted to "dip" the focus of his headlight, thus giving the opposite vehicle a chance to adjust his vehicle and also an indication that he too needs to "dip" his vehicle lamps.

However, doing the above operation manually, every now and then can become horribly laborious and troublesome, therefore if some kind of automatic system is Incorporated, can help to save this headache of the driver, especially while he is driving in stressful conditions and on dangerous highways.

How to make an automatic vehicle headlight dipper/dimmer circuit

The following diagram describes a simple yet effective auto head lamp dipper or dimmer circuit. The transistor is used as a comparator, which compares the preset resistance level and the LDR resistance level with reference to ground.



Light falling over the LDR from the headlight of the vehicle coming from the front instantly lowers its resistance and allows more current to flow to the base of the transistor.

The transistor conducts and activates the relay, which in turn flips the contacts such that the host vehicles headlamps gets connected with the dipper filament, changing its intensity.

The whole circuit may be enclosed in a small box and installed somewhere near the drivers dashboard area, however the LDR needs to be wired and placed out of the enclosure, in some corner of the wind shield, so that it is able to "see the light from the opposite vehicles just as the driver would see them.

Parts List

R1 = 1K,
P1 = 10 K,
LDR = With resistance @ around 10 to 50 K when illuminated in daylight (under shade).
T1 = BC547,
D1 = 1N4007
Relay = coil 400 Ohms, DPDT, 12 volts