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Home-made heated seats for my BMW!
My 1986 525i is fairly well specced', but the original owner failed to sp=
ecify heated seats, Bah!
Last winter I tried in vain to find a suitable donor car in salvage yards=
, so last weekend as I noticed the evenings getting darker and cooler, I =
decided to convert my own!
Using trial and error, I found that 15 metres of 0.56mm (22SWG?) enamelle=
d copper wire gives out the right power for one portion of a seat. Each s=
eat has two portions, the backrest and the squab.
If you measure out about 15 metres of the wire, get an assistant to help =
you double the wire up twice into a 3.5 metre, four strand length.
Simply thread this to and fro between the seat's metal springy frame/mesh=
and the coconut fibre type layer of the backing, soreading all the stran=
s out as much as possible.
Repeat this in both portions of each seat, then wire each of any one seat=
's two portions together in parallel. You will have to scrape the enamel =
off the ends of the wire to make a contact.=20
Now you will have to supply 12 volts and a return earth to each seat, the=
earth can be obtained by carefully wiring one end of the element to the =
seat anchor, routing it so that the seat can still be adjusted.
The 12V supply is a question of choice, I have not obtained a suitable sw=
itch yet, and I am just running a flylead to my radio for test purposes.