wiring in switches and how to

im starting this thread to help some people with wiring in switches questions. please feel free to post any wiring tips or anything that might help others that dont know how to start wiring in something.

as for wiring the switches if you order from otrawwa that are just simple on off switches have five poles on the back

here is a diagram for the switch


8 and 7 on the switch are the top of the switch and are the grounds for the lights in the switch these can be jumpered together on that switch and with all the other switches that you would have. i have the switches on my dash wired this way and as well on the overhead.


6 on the diagram is for the power to the LEDs in the switch this can be jumpered to other number 6s on other switches as well. i wired mine to a relay and connected it to the power to my lights on my dash so that my switches can dim with the rest. ( being leds they take lesser power to run then others on your dash so your dash could be to dark for you before the switches are the brightness you want. this can be fixed with a

$8 Aaron 4Pcs 50W 6ohm Load Resistors - Fix LED Bulb Fast Hyper Flash Turn Signal Blink Error Code (Resistors get very hot during working)

resistor. This resistor will take some power from the LEDs and make them dim a little faster with the rest of the dash.


2 is your power supply to your accessory this can be wired directly to the battery for the accessory to operate even when the truck is off. or you can wire it to a relay and connect to a wire that is only powered when the truck is on.

(ill explain the relay in a little bit.)


3 is your accessory and will be wired either to a relay or directly to your accessory. If wiring directly to the accessory you just hook this up to the positive on your accessory and put ground on your accessory to the frame or run a wire to a negative on a blue sea buss or to your battery and your set.


Now to the relay



here is a picture of a relay to look at and just to reiterate 86 will be the single wire number 3 coming from your switch. 85 will go to a ground either on your block or to the frame or buss. 30 will be coming from your fuse block for that accessory and your fuse block will need proper fuse. 87 will be going to the positive on your accessory. then again the ground on your accessory will not need anything special just needs to be grounded.

side note. 87a works back words of 87 so when the switch is turned off if 87a is used the accessory will be on and when the switch is turned on the accessory will be switched off.

an example would be the high and low beams when turned on*. when the high beam switch is turned off the low beams are on (87a) when you switch the high beams on the the low beams switch off and the high beams turn on (87).

when hooking up the fuse block i wire mine directly to the battery and used 4 awg wire to do so. this will make all accessories able to turn on even when the truck is turned off. if you have accessories that you want to turn off with the truck you can do another relay and have 86 be a tap into a wire that is only hot when the truck is on.

Here are some pictures of looms I have done. This one has the 4 on off switches and a transmission temp gauge for it.
Mine for my truck. Has 4 on offs in the center and the outside two got wired for the heated seats.
Here is a picture of the ground wires (poles 7 and 8) jumpered together. And installed in the plugs

And with all the other wires all in (minus one I ran out of colors).

 

Here are some diagrams of wiring schematics that i have found.

 

You rock man! Glad you made this to help others who lack wiring skills like me

 

Am I reading it wrong or does the last pic show the relays inside the car?

 

Thanks for this thread.

 

No problem I'll be adding more and pictures later. Hoping to do more then just this switch.

 

I updated the first post with pictures

 

Hey Jake in your first pic what is the weird shaped thing with a red cap for? Its right next to the end of the switchbacks

 

That is the red bulb that goes in the back of the temp gauge. It's wired in the same as the switches to be lit up when the switches are lit up.

 

I had a question in regards to how or if I could use these switches with Rigid Lights. They supply three wires that are similar to the one in the picture (bottom) but are smaller and will not fit those connections.
The one with eight connections was purchased from CBI when I got the ditch light brackets. It is a three position switch with the same size connections as the bottom one. Didn't really come with any instructions and I am not a wiring guru by any means.



This is what rigid supplied me and I would like to use something more clean instead of having to drill holes through blank slots.

 

The rocker switch you got from cbi looks like it's this style.

http://www.otrattw.com/wiring/VMD.pdf

Quick question does it flip one direction and and stay there and then the other way and it does not stay there.

 

It flips up from the middle position and stays there. You can also do the same thing in the down position. The wiring diagram looks like it fits. So are rigid's wiring proprietary towards their toggle switches. I just didnt understand why they are smaller.

 

There is nothing special to their wiring. Black is ground and the red is power from battery and red with black stripe is positive to the light.

 

I get that part but I was looking at the size of their connections and I thought that they were too small to go on those prongs. I put the supplied toggle next the ones above and it is a noticeable size difference.

 

Ohh ok I'm on the same page now. Go to the hard wear store and get some female spade connectors. Those are the right ones.

 

Good looking thread. Thanks for putting it up. It was only cause of threads all over the info net that I was able to do mine the way I did. Here are some of the ones that I did....

For my @Iggy. switch panel

For my center console

 

Man this makes me realize how bad of a hack job my wiring is... But great idea I remember when I did mine I was so confused at first!

 

The fact that you did it yourself is awesome. And as long as you haven't burnt down your truck you did good. (I almost burnt down mine.........)

 

I really didn't understand why when my fuse blew I couldn't just replace it with a bigger fuse and move on with life.... so it could have...
Its funny I've actually changed my major to electrical engineering so now I don't really have any excuses for why wiring a truck to have some lights is so hard!