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Live power windows?


BoomaO
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Has anyone rewired thier power windows to be live all the time? It sucks needing the key to be on to use them! I cant see it being too hard, but I'm not the most mechanically minded person, but can follow simple instructions ;)

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  • 2 weeks later...

There are more than a few ways to do this. I would personally start at the fuse. First make sure the fuse doesn't control anything other than the windows. Next, use a meter to find out which side of the fuse holder has power all the time and which is going to windows. Last, pull the fuse block and cut the wire going to the inlet side of the fuse. Cap off the wire going to the fuse holder. Connect a 12v constant wire to the wire coming from the fuse holder. It seems like a lot of work just to make it so you don't need to grab your keys to put down the windows though.

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One of my dad's Nissans (I think it was the car50) was set up so that the windows could be operated after shutting it off. It stayed live until you opened a door. You may be able to program the existing hardware to do this; my dad's R51 Frontier had a preset that made the doors lock if you went over 10 mph or something (because paranoia), and we found instructions to turn that off by turning the key and messing with the window switch in the right sequence. It might've been in the owner's manual actually. I don't know how the later Pathfinders (much less the Aussie rigs) were optioned, but look into this before cutting wires.

 

If that doesn't pan out, I'd just run a relay off the parking lights to feed power to the windows.

 

The problem would be figuring out how to wire the thing. Is the window circuit fused in the box? If it is, it's probably on a bus with a bunch of other things, so powering it up would also power up whatever else is on that bus--radio, fuel pump, whatever. If this isn't a problem, you're good. If it is, you could isolate it so it's only powered through the relay, but then the windows don't work unless you have your parking lights on. I think to do it properly you'd have to hook the relay output to the windows, and then run a diode between the relay output and the fuse box, so either the bus or the relay could power the windows but the relay couldn't power the fuse box.

 

And yes, just pulling the fuse and hooking unswitched + to the side that's not the bus would be much easier. I'd make them switched because if something goes wrong, it's good to have some way to turn them off short of disconnecting the ground wire from the battery. I would also worry about it drawing down the battery if the windows are controlled by some kind of electronic module.

 

All of this assumes the window circuitry is free-standing and not built into some all-encompassing computer system. If it is, I'd put down the wire strippers, back away slowly, and make a note to roll up the windows before shutting off the engine, because ain't nobody got time for that.

Edited by Slartibartfast
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