Need assistance with this circuit

[yfd33]

I really hope someone can help me with this project. I am new to this forum but appreciate any feedback.

I am working on a fire department ladder/aerial truck. The problem: There are strobe lights that are mounted on the bucket/basket of the truck that normally flash when switched on from the cab. The wire that runs from the cab to the lights is broken somewhere in the swivel assembly. A swivel is the part on the turntable of the ladder truck where the wiring, hydraulics, and water pipe pass through allowing 360 degrees of turning. The swivel needs to be replaced if we wish to fix this wire. This is not an option at this time due to the cost being over $10,000 to replace with labor.

Here's the deal: There is still plenty of 12 volt power to the bucket area. There are power leads in the bucket area that have constant 12v power as soon as the vehicle is turned on. This power would work fine, but the lights would constantly flash when the vehicle is on- even if not responding to a fire call. The idea: to have a 12 volt relay mounted in the bucket area feeding off of the constant 12 volt power. This relay can be operated remotely to be turned on and off from the cab via a radio/remote control. The remote control can not be like a garage door opener. It must be able to be hardwired into a common on/off (not momentary) 12volt automotive switch.

Questions:
-Where can I buy this transmitter/receiver combo that works with 12 volt systems on a radio frequency, not infrared and preferrably not a keychain remote.
-How can a wire the on/off 12volt switch in the cab to send this rf signal to the relay from a constant on/off switch? I understand how I could wire a momentary switch into the transmitter by simply using the garage door opener-style transmitter and hard wiring it to a switch. But it must use the trucks existing switch whcih is constant on/off, not momentary on/off. The reason: There are several switches for turning on all of the emergency lighting. All of these switches are tied into one MASTER switch. The firemen simply hit the MASTER switch which feeds power to all of the switches that were left in the on position.

Please, any help is appreciated. I am not an electronics genius so please be specific and use lay terms if possible. Your help is greatly appreciated in advance!
-TONY

 

[philba]

interesting project. I assume you want to just use off-the-shelf parts as much as possible. right?

take a look here. https://www.rentron.com/PicBasic/RemoteControl.htm
lots of components you could use though more than just plug-and-play. look around that site. there are lots of tutorials and circuits that you could use. It's a little weak on organization, though.

Most remote controls use a "toggle" approach. click-on, click-off. You need to instead, have it sending an "on" signal continuously, when the on signal goes away, the unit shuts off the relay. right?

You could make this work with a standard garage door toggle style system, though. make a simple voltage regulator to replace the battery of the remote control and short the "button" on the transmitter (solder a wire across the switch's pins so it's always on). Power to the battery replacement comes through the switch conected via the master switch. current draw should be quite low so it should not be a problem. the unit will continuously send "on" while powered. On the receive side, the receiver will turn on the relay when it sees the "on" signal. But, you need to come up with a delay in turning off the relay. since the transmitter will cycle at a preset period (i.e. the time between sending each "on" singal), you just need the turn-off delay to be longer than that. the rentron site shows how to drive relays from a receiver and it's a fairly simple mod to make the relay have a turn off delay so as long as the transmitter is sending "on" signals, the relay stays on. if you get to that point, we can help you. not completely off the shelf.

 

[yfd33]

Thanks a million! I can handle all of this. What a great help.

My question is how or where to get this delay thingy? I understand completely that the unit will continuously fire an ON signal and the delay thingy will "shut off" the transmitting signal while the switch remains ON sending power.

 

[yfd33]

Here's a thought.... Can you build this contraption ? If so, I would gladly pay you for parts, labor and a fair mark-up.

I would need it almost ready to plug and play. The truck [obviously] supplies 12 volts at the receiver side and the transmitter side. I would need any voltage regulator/reducers to be already wired in. If it can be built so that I can simply tie in 12volts + to the tranmitter's power supply (from the truck's switch) and a 12volt (-) ground. Also the same on the receiver end with constant 12volt + and (-) as well as a third "turn-on" wire from the receiver that would power my relay (I can supply) when the system is powered on. If you or anyone else reading this can build it at a fair price, please let me know immediately! The truck is out of service until I get this working. Thanks!