[lunarhighway]

i've been working on and off on the thing for the last few months, but other stuff has kept me from tinkering with the car to much.
basically i've got most of the stuff, i've had the door installed on my car to check the fit so now i "just" need to breath some life into it.

so far i've got a more or less working door mechanism for the top grill but the pulley system i'd build looked a little messy... if i had found something to use as pulleys to route the wires i might have gotten it to work, it's not a dead end but if i can find a simpler actuator like that great central locking motor i think that's the way to go

but since i'll start moving next week to my new place wich needs some major (eco) modding i'm a little worried it'll be some time before i get some time to work on it.

btw an old idea just popped back in my head! i'll just mention it for what it's worth.

when i first started thinking of a grillblock i considdered a gradual opening and closeing system...
although i never got very far with the idea the motion of the temp gauge was inspiring... there it was right before my nose something that gracefully moved in relation to the engines temperature!... i assume this is controlled by an analog changing voltage so taping into this signal could be interesting.

mapping voltages to temperatures can give you key points where something should happen (opening angles for the door perhaps)... some relatively simple electronics could trigger a relay at a certain voltage (basically something like that makes the fan kick in...that's maybe how i arrived at that idea)

unfortunately my knowledge of electronics are a little rusty but i remember in school we once build a simple voltage meter where leds representing preset values lit up when that voltage was reached... there was not much more on the print than a couple of resistors and a few transistors...

like i said...just an idea