Wiring Toyota Push Buttons for LED

Whats up everyone. So through my searches on Tacomaworld I found little info or confusing off topic threads on how to wire Caliraised, mictuning, ch4x4 OEM Toyota push switches to multiple led bars. I will be updating with anyones advice or tips to create a good running thread. The information below is gathered from combining numerous seperate threads and google searches.

This thread is if you throw away the Premade relay/threewire harness that come with your lightbar and purchase an aftermarket relay and wiring.

You can also use the harness/relay that comes with the lightbar if you just use the relay wire (white wire) and disconnect the other two wires from the relay throwing them away. Then use that white wire as your Red 1 wire in step #1.

Here is the oem push button harness that comes with each switch.

-Green goes to add a fuse in fuse box for power
-Black ground
-Red 1 goes through firewall into engine and connects to lightbar relay
-Red 2 goes to green cargo lamp wire for illumination at night.

Before I got started I took all three switch harnesses and piggybacked them. Then it was ready to connect to truck and led relay wires.



Step 1

So for each lightbar set I ran 18awg wire from each relay’s #86 spot and into cab through firewall along with one black wire for negative/ground. I ran a total of 6. This is were you can also chose to just run the premade harnesses white wire instead of aftermarket wiring. If your not sure if its the white wire of the three on your premade harness/relay look to see what wire connects to 86 on the relay

1 bumper light wire
1 ditch light wire
1 Prinsu rack led wire
2 spare wires (future led sets)
1 black ground wire.

These wires (not the ground) will connect to each switches’ red 1 wire.

Step 2 (Power)

Now a purchased a mini add a fuse and an aftermarket add a fuse box cover. The add a fuse plugs into the power outlet 15amp fuse. This fusebox is located under dash to left of stearing wheel. There is two rows of fuses. I used the right side (passenger row) third fuse down. Then i placed the 15amp fuse and a 10amp new fuse into the add a fuse.



Step 3 (Power cont.)

The green wire from switch. This is power. I took my three switches green wires and twisted all three green wires together and used a heat shrink wire connecter. I inserted the three twisted greens and crimped/heatshrank.

Here you can see the three switch green wires going into one side of the connector. Other side goes to the add a fuse wire lead.


Now I took the add a fuse wire and placed it into the other end of the connecter and crimped/heatshrank. Now we have fuse power that only turns lights on when car is on.

Heat shrink connecter I reference


Step 4 (Grounding)

Now I did the same thing with all blacks coming from switches. I twisted all three together and crimped/heat shrank into a connector. Then I took the black wire i ran through firewall and crimped/heatshrank into other end of connecter. Now connect ground inside engine block to battery or aftermarket grounding block.

Here I also created a 6” extra lead to attach future grounds to.

Step 5 (Night time illumination)
Red 2

So...now your switch needs to illuminate the lower small led only at night so you can see them while driving like your OEM standard Toyota switches. You are going to tie all red 2 wires from the switches together and connect them to the cargo lights green+ wire.





Lights on activating only the lower portion of switch’s lights (pic below)

Center switch pressed activating lightbar (pic below)


Step 6 (Connecting led bars to switch through a relay)
Red 1
Now you should have a red wire left for each switch (red 1) This connects the wires u ran through firewall from relays to each switch. This wire is what signals your relay to illuminate your lightbar.

 

Now I'm confused. Haha.

Green Wire- Add-a-fuse
Red1- LED Light Bar
Red2- Dash lighting/Back lighting
Black- Ground

So then what goes to the relay? Or you didn't use a relay?

 

This might help.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/switch-wiring-help.481521/#post-14688850

 

Thanks. I was on this thread the other day and I couldn't get it to work. Either I had the wrong replay or I was too tired. Haha. My head was starting to hurt so I quit. I'll take another look at it.

 

Red1 goes to relay trigger

 

Going by the schematic, yes. But not going by the original post above.

 

I think by led light bar he means relay for the light bar, these switches are only designed to handle like 3 or so amps and should never be hooked up without a relay.

 

Actually the last sentence of the OP says the red wire goes to the relay

 

Lol I missed that too

 

Red 1 I updated it I can see how it was confusing

 

The 3A rating of the switch is that the switch is capable of turning on and off a 3A load, if you are using relays(as one should) you will not have an issue connecting multiple switches together with a 3-5A fuse just for the switch LED's. The little LED's in the switch barely draw any load, they are just really really bright LED's.

 

Well it will slightly depend on how you have your switch wired. My switches do not light up on the bottom unless I have my headlights on, but when the switches are on they are super bright(distracting bright, almost looks like the top LED is on as well)

 

My power is connected to my taillight circuit, there is zero light from the switch unless I have pushed the switch on(top LED) or the taillights are on(bottom LED).

Using the accessary fuse for power would power the lower switch LED any time the truck is on, that is why your switch is on regardless of your headlights. But are you saying the switch then gets brighter when you turn the head lights on? Also I'm assuming the LED's in the switch are orange?

And yes the bottom LED light will spill over into the top of the switch, probably a combination of super bright LED/poorly made partition between top and bottom LED's

 

Yes gets way brighter when i turn my headlights on. The switches are orange im waiting for the blue ones in mail. Its very faint then triples in brightness when i turn lights on. So somehow its getting a small trickle of power to the lower led when cars turned on. I may try the tail light thing and see if that works that could be it.

 

OK so you tapped into the dimmer circuit for your bottom LED's, makes more sense to me now. I did not do this I used a second add a fuse for Red 2 and used the taillight circuit. From what I remember reading regarding the dimmer circuit in order for your new switches to function the same as all your other factory switches you need to tie the switch ground wire into the cargo light ground wire. There is a thread from some time last year discussing this but from what I recall the ground wire also has voltage on it which manipulates the brightness of the switches through the size of voltage drop across the switch.

I can try and remember to get a picture of my wiring schematic tonight that shows how I wired everything. But this is how I believe I wired my switches.

Green - Inline fuse connected to power outlet fuse(all green wires connected together)
Red 1 - Connected to Relay(each switch went to individual relay)
Red 2 - Inline fuse connected to taillight fuse(all red 2 wires connected together)
Black - Connected to body ground.(all black wires connected together)

 

Ok so we wired them the same and just red 2 wire is different. I did read that as well about tying ground into dimming wire but cant find it. Im actually not concerned about them dimming much. So maybe the green cargo is power tan is ground i dunno haha. So were wired same way basically its driving me crazy im getting that faint led glow all the time.

 

You are getting the faint glow because you connected to the dimmer circuit.

 

My switch is wired to my PANEL fuses so it only lights up when the the dash lights come on and I don't have any glow when they're not on. I would try swapping where you tapped into the fuse and see if that changes it? Can't help with the dimming option...my ch4x4 switch isn't super bright like others are saying - I have a blue one.

 

I fixed the dim light my switches maintained and always stayed lit. It was because I connected to tan cargo light wire. Switched it to green and all is well.

 

Anyone solve which wire to tap into, to get the switches to dim?