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Topic: Newbie Question - Car Alarm (Read 1 time) previous topic - next topic


I am completely new to Arduino, I did some small stuff with Picaxe a long time ago as part of a class.  I really want to learn how to do some of this and understand it fully.  For my first big project, I'd like to design a car alarm (I know I can buy one cheap, but where's the fun in that?).  So, I'm just looking at some simple inputs and outputs.  If the car door opens and after so long a period of time someone doesn't turn on the ignition then a light blinks or a relays closes, something along those lines.

I'm wondering if anyone has some example circuits combined with some lines of code that I could look at to serve as a guide?  I've looked at some of the tutorials and see some simple switches.  Here's one question I have right off the bat.  Most of the simple switches I see, the switching is done at the 5 volt level.  If I isolate the 12 volts from the car away from the 5 volts at the Arduino, but have them share a common ground, can I do the switching at ground instead of the 5 volts?  My example being that most car door switches go to ground when the car door is opened, so I would want the Arduino to sense that switch is going to ground.  Anyone already have a circuit drawn that would show how to do this?  I've done some forum searching and haven't came up with anything.

I appreciate any help you can send my way!
Thanks for such a great forum.


As a former car audio and electronics installer, I'll help you out a bit.  You'd be wise to not force the system to rely on a negative door trigger but leave it changeable via a hardware change, or do what DEI does and have both a positive and negative door trigger lead.

As far as relay switching, there's a couple of examples of how to do this using a transistor and blocking diode.  


I appreciate the reply, and you are right, the option of two different inputs, both positive as well as negative is a good idea.  Can someone give me some guidence and direction on how to go about this?  I've seen the diagrams of using diodes and transistors to control relays, I fully understand that and shouldn't have any problems there.  It's the inputs that concern me.


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