Ron H: If your battery goes dead, and you don't have your key, how will you get the door open?
If I did build this system and decided not to walk around with a key I would have a hidden key on the car. Magnetic hide away key boxes – maybe..
Nigel G: Bear in mind, you would have to inform your insurance company of any modifications, and it's likely that such changes would void your insurance anyway!.
If you didn't tell them, and tried to make a claim, they would have a perfect write to refuse your claim!.
LOL – true, but is this a law forum or electronics? No, you’re quite right, there is even the potential for this project to be extremely dangerous - if I did build it and the system fails at 70mph and the ignition decides to turn off.
Anyway I had no intension of messing with ignition and starter motor this year (if at all due to the risks of cut outs from an improperly design system), winters coming. My old car has a remote start I installed that works just fine. I disabled the steering lock and was planning to modify the remote start to stay on – never got round to it, plus thought about the danger of things failing.
I once drove a keyless Nissan Micra. U hand to keep a transceiver in your pocket (but there was no need to press any buttons). You still had to turn a mechanical switch to start the ignition and starter motor. But I think I remember the guy saying if the transceiver is away from the car for more that 15seconds the car engine would cut out – what if some brat kid decided to throw it out the window?
Im not planning to get myself in trouble with this project, the main aim of all of this is to learn electronics – this just seemed a fun way of doing it so rather than just reading a book on diodes/transistors etc. actually aiming for something.
I’ll try and ask another question and hope I get electronics advice rather than legal ones and suggestion of better ways to do things (because I just want to learn how to do it that way even if it not the best way for that particular project. Of course you can suggest a better way if you explain how to do that too.
Ok – Im very new to PICs, and staying on the theme of this electronic lock (lets forget about it being touch or whatever – lets say it’s a simple Push To Make) – how do I get it to recognise when the correct code is punched in. Say the code is tap2times – pause – tap1time – pause – tap3time. Just some general ideas and various commands that I need to use. (As for how much pic programming I know – very little. I did write something on my own. A 7seg display (fed by 7outputs on the PIC) that counts from 0 to 9 which advances by 1 every time you push a switch.)