Light Bar switch turns on dash lights and position lights

It came prewired and it seems it wasn’t done right

 

Interesting idea. May be a little complicated for a novice though. I didn't see output harness'? You build them yourself too?

 

Might be time to pay the piper and take it to someone who has a little more knowledge on automotive wiring.

 

All of the other switches I’ve ever bought show internal wiring and polarities. These ch4x4 probably just source them from China, doubt they are making switches for a living. If someone can get a part number off the switch I bet there’s a quality schematic out there.

 

I've been doing electrical controls for more than 20 years now and I'm usually pretty good at figuring this stuff out in my head. I haven't done residential in a while, but I used to be able to troubleshoot 3 way / 4 way circuits just by flipping one switch. Haven't tried that in a while though.

Finding drawings for the cheep stuff seems to be more difficult for me. So I usually just reverse engineer.

 

It seems that way unfortunately

 

You need to disconnect what your doing and start by verifying the the Bussman is working correctly. If the bussman is wired correctly with just the wrong wire colors, you can still make it work without changing anything.

Start by locating the relay wires and confirm where they go on the relay (if you can).

85 / 86 are the coil wires
30 is connected to the bussman power supply
87 is the relay output.

 

The way tacozord organized the thread has each relay and fuse only location with a Metripack 280 connector with one wire to the fuse or relay and one wire to a ground buss. It’s not really complicated but because the relays install top down and the wire/terminals/seals install bottom up it’s possible to get it bassackwards. Once built though any new accessories are plug/play.
It’s a thread specifically for newbies but it assumes you’re willing to put in the time to learn the stuff and figure out any mistakes. It’s a bit early to throw in the towel.

There are several threads here with detailed pics of the boards on both sides. I’ll hunt one down and post a link. I end up swapping either limit resistors, leds or both on most of them to get them right.

 

Here’s a link on how to open the switch body up. https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...e-darker-like-oem.495880/page-2#post-18275483
Further down in that post are decent pics of the board.

 

Fwiw, I’ve had conversations with several members troubleshooting issues like this. I usually end up learning something new myself since some are more knowledgeable about other aspects than the ones I’m familiar with. Neither the switches or relays are high level brain twisters so it usually ends up being either a brain fart or a bad switch or plug connection.

 

Thanks for the post, I guess CH4x4 is too cheap to make a simple schematic of their switch even though it's only 5 wires LOL. I like how Carling has the layout of each model in their catalog, makes it very easy to customize a switch to your liking and figure out how you want to set it up.

 

Is the Bussman a new install? Is everything, including the other side of the coil, properly grounded?

Swapping the relay and/or swapping the wires to a different relay are good troubleshooting steps.

Check the fuse for the relay as well.

Also, there's five switch leads going to the Bussman so you need to make sure you're triggering the correct relay that's wired to your lightbar.

 

Nice. These switches whether $20 versions from ARB, CH4X4, or cheap Amazon knock offs are all laid out the same with the same pin outs so a schematic is less helpful for troubleshooting than pics of the actual problem board. Better quality switches are physically smoother and tighter with nicer print/imaging and possibly smd resistors instead of axial lead ones but schematically they’re all identical. With those the layout is painfully clear as are any obvious soldering errors. As far as customizing goes, there aren’t really any options for different pole/throw combinations with only 5-pins and no trace to the middle pin anyway. You can convert to momentary by pulling a small metal latch bar out of the triangular hole in the switch itself and there are dual switches that use the middle pin but everything is SPST.

 

If it’s any consolation last week I plugged in my fogs and nothing. Both switch leds worked as they should but no light. I had them on a relay other than the one triggered by my fog switch. It happens. Another member had a bad connector, it showed continuity but wasn’t solid enough to trigger the relay. Yet another had a bad switch. The housing and pcb were fine but the switch mounted on the board wasn’t. The fix is usually easier than locating the problem. And yet even with that the real advantage of building your own panel/harness is in knowing how it was done so it’s not a black box full of spaghetti.

 

Well, I’m an idiot. Everything is wired fine, I just blew a fuse in the cab…

thank you everyone!!

 

It's always the little things that bite a person in the ass lol!

Happens to the best of us