Automotive Lamp Outage Detection

A presentation of potential solutions for detecting and indicating failed exterior automotive running lamps is provided. Comments and summaries of research in the areas of reed switches, photocells, magnetics, and electronic devices are given.

Basic design specifications are established along with the posing of other significant system design criteria that must be resolved by automotive companies or safety requirements.

The electromagnetically actuated reed switch best satisfies the design requirements for a stable, economical, and usable system. Comprehensive theoretical reed relay systems are presented and their impact on the automotive electrical system is discussed.