Image 1 — Review Request - Car Power Antenna Driver Board
Image 2 — Review Request - Car Power Antenna Driver Board
Image 3 — Review Request - Car Power Antenna Driver Board
Image 4 — Review Request - Car Power Antenna Driver Board
Image 5 — Review Request - Car Power Antenna Driver Board
Image 6 — Review Request - Car Power Antenna Driver Board
Image 7 — Review Request - Car Power Antenna Driver Board

Review Request - Car Power Antenna Driver Board

I'm needing to replace the burnt driver board of my vintage car's auto extending antenna. The antenna is triggered to extend whenever the car radio turns on, and retract whenever it turns off. This is via a 12V signal out of the back of the radio.

Rather than using a microcontroller solution, I thought I'd take some inspiration from the original driver board and build it using mostly discrete components. See the last photo for the schematic of the original circuit.

The original board used a timer to turn on the extension motor for a duration of ~12s (roughly the time it takes for the antenna to fully extend or retract), and also a PTC thermistor to detect overheating and shut off the motor.

I kept the timer idea in my circuit as a backup, but replaced the PTC thermistor with a stall current detector that shuts the motor off right when the antenna reaches an endpoint. An additional timer is used to prevent the stall detector from triggering for the duration of motor inrush current.

For simplicity and efficiency improvements, the original bjt h-bridge is replaced with a discrete mosfet h-bridge.

I know a circuit like this could be much easier implemented with a microcontroller and a modern integrated h-bridge IC, but I wanted the challenge of a discrete analog/digital design.

Please provide any suggestions to improve the simplicity of the circuit or to the pcb layout!

u/jighris — 5 days ago
▲ 50 r/W124+1 crossposts

Hirschmann 6000 Power Antenna Board Reverse Engineered

My power antenna has been non-functional for almost a decade now, and I finally got around to attempting repair on it. Apart from the antenna mast being seized, I also found the driver board was badly burned, possibly caused by the former issue.

Repairing the board was probably impossible, so I thought I might as well tear it apart and figure out how it works.

u/jighris — 14 days ago
▲ 24 r/E30

A/C Swap Manifold

Im currently in the process of adding a/c to my m52 swapped e30. Since I didnt want to shell out for the a/c solutions kit, I had to come up with my own way of adapting the compressor to the e30 system. I decided to fabricate a custom manifold. I bought #10 and #8 braze-on fittings and an aluminum plate from aliexpress and brazed them together using a cheap torch and camping stove.

The benefit of making this custom manifold is that i can use original bmw suction and discharge lines rather than having to make or purchase custom lines. For the suction line I use pn 64531380542, which has a #10 fitting on the compressor side.

I got the idea to do this after finding this part. Unfortunately the shipping for that part to canada almost doubles the price, so i decided to try my hand at fabricating a copy of it myself.

Thought I might share this to give everyone an alternative to the expensive a/c solutions kit!

u/jighris — 2 months ago

No show first leg

I have a costco travel vacation package to cancun in july, which includes a round trip flight through westjet. I'm entertaining plans to add a couple days to mexico city to the front of the trip, but costco travel says they can't help me with booking flights to mexico city due to them not servicing packages for that city.

The option costco travel left me is to refund the flights with a cancellation fee of $175, then for me to book new flights on my own. However, after pricing things out, I've found that it would be significantly cheaper to keep the existing round trip flights and separately book the flights from my home to mexico city and mexico city to cancun. I.e., I would no-show the departure flight and just use the return flight.

Reading the no-show policy on westjet's website, it sound like they would let me keep the return flight as long as I notify them that I'll be no-showing ahead of the check-in deadline for the departure flight. However, since I booked through costco travel, I'm concerned that this policy does not apply to me.

Does anyone have experience or advice with this kind of situation?

reddit.com
u/jighris — 4 months ago

Non-op Protocol

26M, fully ruptured my left achilles 4 days ago playing soccer. Went to ER and they put me in a splint with a very high degree of plantar flexion and referred me to an orthopedic surgeon. The ortho got me in very next day for an appointment.

The appointment was very brief, with just a thompson test to verify that it was a full tear. No scans or closer analysis. Their decision was to put me on non-op recovery, stating that they don't do surgery anymore for these injuries because non-op outcomes are similar but without surgery risk. The pic is their non-op recovery protocol.

Compared to other non op recovery protocols I've found on the web, the degree of plantar flexion prescribed seems quite low. I see 40° reccomended, but with the 2cm wedges in my walking boot my foot is only around 15° off neutral.

Has anyone here been put on a similar protocol?

u/jighris — 5 months ago