# I need help with a wiper motor



## Hellspawn (Oct 13, 2006)

I picked up a couple of these saturn motors from a junk yard yesterday and I cant seem to get them running.

I was able to find the "parking switch"? it resets the arm to a specific point, but I cant get the motor running continuously.

its not the same motor that I found on scary terrys website and im totally lost, im feeling alittle freaked out, I need to get these motors running so that I can finish these grave grabbers before christmas (presents)

I looked online trying to find a wiring diagram for it or for any help for that matter and ive come up short.

can someone with some experience help me please?

if someone could clarify how to get it running and which wires I need to use, I tried using the black (common) wire and the yellow (12v+) to get it to reset, but I noticed on terrys wiper page that he/she said that they used the + and - lines from a pc power supply (yellow and blue?)

im desperate and feeling really freaked out, any help is appreciated.

here is a link to my photobucket with some pictures of the motors

Wiper Motor pictures by jbob-SLC - Photobucket


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## cqedens137 (Sep 27, 2007)

what make/model/year did the motor come out of?


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## heresjohnny (Feb 15, 2006)

Hellspawn, I ran into a similar problem with a wiper motor pulled from a junk yard car one time.

1. I am guessing from your post that you are using PC power supply? If so make sure you are connecting 'PS on' to ground. Refering to Scary Terry's page, connect the green terminal 14 to a black common terminal, like 13. http://www.scary-terry.com/atxps/atxps.htm

2. My wiper motor did not line up with Scary Terry's diagram, but there was a thick black wire which I guessed was ground (-). I connected this to the ground (-) connection from the PC power supply, like number 13. I then found the other wire that needed to be connected by briefly touching a wire from the wiper to a +5 wire from the power supply (like the red 20 wire). This way I identified reset, slow and fast.

Once you have identified ground, fast and slow on the wiper motor, keep the ground from the wiper connected to the ground from the PC supply (#13), then try connecting the slow wire to either a +3.3 (orange), a +5 (red) or a +12(blue) lead from the PC supply to get the speed you want. You can also try connecting the fast wire from the wiper motor to each of these PC supply wires, giving you a total of 6 different speeds you can have.

Warning, connect only the slow or fast wire from the wiper, not both at the same time. Connect the slow or fast to only one wire from the PC supply, an orange, red or blue.

Hope this helps


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## Hellspawn (Oct 13, 2006)

Thanks, im going home tonight and playing with them for a bit, its hard when feeling under pressure to get something done, my brain turns off and I go into panic mode.

Both motors that I got are identical and came from different saturns, one was off a 98 and the other off a 99 or a 2000.

Thanks again.


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## uncle (Sep 26, 2007)

And don't forget to try connecting the black supply wire to the case of the motor, as they are usually grounded. Then it becomes easier to identify which terminals do what.


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## cqedens137 (Sep 27, 2007)

uncle said:


> And don't forget to try connecting the black supply wire to the case of the motor, as they are usually grounded. Then it becomes easier to identify which terminals do what.


thats what i did with the wipermotor i used out of my jeep cj7. i will check tomorrow about a wiring diagram for the saturn wiper motor.


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## Hellspawn (Oct 13, 2006)

you guys are great, ill keep you posted on what happened tomorrow after I get a chance to work with it


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## Hellspawn (Oct 13, 2006)

After working with the motors again last night, I think the problem is laying with my cpu powersupply.

I attached the common line from the PS to the metal chasis and took the 5v line and tried every connector, got nothing at all from all but one, the middle connector on the motor sparked and there was some slight smoke (ps did not short out) I tried again with the 12v line and got nothing from any of the connectors except for the middle one and that sparked and shorted out my PS.

I bypassed the connectors alltogether and went for the black and white wires, with the 5v line I was able to get very slow motion from the white line and when I tried the black line, it shorted out my PS.

I tried the same thing with the 12v line but got no motion whatsoever, it just shorted out my PS.

I changed the jumper on my powersupply from 115 to 230 and was able to get motion from the 12v line on the black lead but the wire got EXTREMELY HOT, actually melted the plastic shielding on the wire from the powersupply.

I grabbed another powersupply (have a dozen I salvaged) and the second one is doing the same thing, im going to try adding a load resistor to the 5v line on the powersupply to see if thats whats causing the problems.

any other suggestions?

Id rather not buy a different powersupply if I can get the computer ones to work, but im also running out of time quickly. my plan was to start work on the grabber tomorrow and have it done by sunday.


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## heresjohnny (Feb 15, 2006)

If you are getting the same thing from 2 different power supplies I would say try a different wiper motor also. I doubt you need a power resistor. 

Are you sure you are using the common (ground) wire from the PS to connect to the wiper motor chasis? I would expect movement from at least 2 of the connections (fast and slow). If you are shorting out your power supply that tells me you may be grounding something other than the ground.

Finally, if you are using the white wire from the PS that is -5v, you should be using a red wire which is +5.


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## Hellspawn (Oct 13, 2006)

yes, unfourtunatly, im using the right wires from the powersupply, im using the black wire from the powersupply (common) and grounding it on the metal chasis.

The white wire I was referring to is a set of wires (white and black) that connect the motor to the powerconnector on the motor itself, since I was having issues not getting any movement from touching either a 5v or a 12v wire (from the powersupply) to the connectors themselves, I bypassed them and went for the wires that lead from that "harness" or whatever it is that you plug the wire harness from the car into, to the motor

here is a picture of what im talking about.










After talking to a few people about my problem, they have suggested that I toss the idea of using a pc power supply and go with a wallwart or a power brick that puts out the proper voltage and amperage that I need.

im going to hit a couple thrift stores today, see if I can come up with something and try that instead.


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## Hellspawn (Oct 13, 2006)

Solved!
I was getting frustrated, I just went and tracked down 2 wallwarts and still it wasnt working, I got looking at it and noticed that the plastic housing that the wire harness from the vehicle would snap into was removeable, I pulled it off and there were 4 connectors soldered to the chasis, it only took me seconds to find the high/low and both parking switches. 

I dont know who in the heck designed this thing, but if it helps anyone else in the future who might use one of these motors, just remove the wire harness housing(sounds good). with it removed, it allmost looks identical to the trico motor that scary terry uses. 

let the celebration commence


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## cqedens137 (Sep 27, 2007)

are terminals on the plug for the wiper motor labeled?

from what i can find the terminals are:

a-pink washer pump
b-black ground
c-brown high or low not sure
d-purple high or low not sure
e-pink power i assume for the park
the colors are what was in the wirning harness going to the plug

hope this helps


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## Hellspawn (Oct 13, 2006)

thanks for the work you did looking all that up, I finally just ripped the whole assembly off the motor chasis and lo and behold, 4 terminals. wiring to these terminals works perfect.


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## Abunai (Oct 28, 2007)

Hellspawn said:


> Solved!
> I was getting frustrated, I just went and tracked down 2 wallwarts and still it wasnt working, I got looking at it and noticed that the plastic housing that the wire harness from the vehicle would snap into was removeable, I pulled it off and there were 4 connectors soldered to the chasis, it only took me seconds to find the high/low and both parking switches.
> 
> I dont know who in the heck designed this thing, but if it helps anyone else in the future who might use one of these motors, just remove the wire harness housing(sounds good). with it removed, it allmost looks identical to the trico motor that scary terry uses.
> ...


I know that this is an old thread, but:

Hellspawn,

Is there any chance you could post a picture of the motor with the four terminals exposed and labeled?
How would one use the parking switches?


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## DanHeidel (Aug 4, 2013)

In case anyone else runs across this thread:
The first image highlights the plastic clips that hold the controller unit on the motor assembly.

Once you remove the controller, there are 4 blade connectors exposed.

The outer two are for sensing the motor position. It's open except for a brief period of contact once per revolution between the two terminals.

The inner two blades are the power connectors. If you are holding the motor so the blades are facing you, the ground blade is the closer of the two. I've tested it at 5V and 12V. Both work. 5V is slower and has a lot less torque.

Be aware that the motor will draw a lot of power at 12 V. I measured over 5 amps of draw so a standard wall wart PS will probably overload. Most PC power supplies should do the trick off the 12V rail.


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## socal (Oct 23, 2013)

*Saturn Wiper Motor follow-up questin*

Hi,

I realize this is an old thread but I believe I have the same motor and also had to remove the plastic housing to get it to work....

I have it working so it runs at high and low rpm. What I have not been able to figure out is how to get it too park.

Is there anything special that needs to be done to get it to the park mode?

Thank you.


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## Hippofeet (Nov 26, 2012)

I'm not positive, but I believe thats where the sensors come in. So you would need to be able to read one of the sensor lines, which would tell you the motors position, and have a way for that sensor signal to tell something to open the circuit for the DC voltage running the motor. In a car, there is probably a chip that counts revolutions, reverses the DC polarity to get it to return, and is used as a counter to time the intermittent function.

The way we use them, we just control the DC voltage, and switch it on or off, or sometimes reverse polarity to go back and forth.


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