RE: electronics questions

[Mark Quinn/HNS <Mark_Quinn@notesgw.hns.com>]

Lee Levitt <wheelman@shore.net> asked:

>1. I'm thinking about hardwiring a garage door opener into my 200. The
>garage door opener runs on a 9 v battery, and the old passports came with
>9 v adapters...can I simply run + to + and - to - and power this opener? I
>plan on putting a switch in the circuit and permanently completing the
>circuit inside the opener...the external momentary switch would provide
>power to the opener, and would be the only visible portion of the whole
>thing...everything else will get tucked away under the dash. Thoughts?

Why go to the trouble of wiring into the car power?  I've done this a 
number of times, but I keep the 9v battery source intact.  The battery 
last for (seems) years (if you're really concerned about life, buy a 
Lithium 9v from Radio Shack) and if you mount it somewhere 
accessible, and/or with a long battery lead, you should be able to get 
to it easily when it needs changing.

With mine (which I've transferred across 4 diff cars over the years) I
took the circuit board out of the case, wired a push-button sw in 
series with the battery and wrapped it in (small-)bubble-wrap.  I then 
tie-wrapped (or taped) it to some convenient point up under the dash, 
nd mounted the switch in a hidden (but accessible) place to avoid 
cosmetic problems.  One suggestion for the switch is inside the glove 
box.  One (obvious?) thing to note is, if your remote has a switch 
directly on the cct board, you must bridge across that switch to 
allow the external switch to work!

-Mark Quinn