Switch question.

[texanidiot25]

Bought a switch a few weeks ago to control the "Evil Eyes" in the CST10. It's a little 3 prong switch, that's two way. One prong is power, one is ACC, and the other is ground. It has a little LED in the switch to light up when it's on. Problem is, it's wired in series with the switch's + and - side so of course it dims my lights outside when on. When I wire power (using the unfused ign tab on the fuse block for testing) to the ACC prong, the LED in the switch gets brighter w/ ign on, but it turns the outside lights off.. But oddly enough when you kill power to the ACC wire while it's connected, the LED in the switch turns off, but the outside lights stay bright.

Tried a few different wiring combos and have blown a fuse in the process.

My 2nd thought just now was to run a jumper wire from my positive into the ACC, hopping that would wire the switch's LED in parallel.

My basic wiring is like this

Batt---Fuse---O===O---Switch---gnd

- is series, and = is where it's parallel between the lights (to split current, but carry 12v to each light)

Any ideas how to wire this stupid switch to the LED in the switch doesn't drop the volts in the lights?


"Evil Eyes"

[Andy4639]

+ wire from fuse to switch.
Ground wire to ground of switch.
ACC wire from switch to whatever it is you are wanting power too.Look at this drawing and just leave the relay out. Hope this helps you.

[Longhorn Man]

the draw on an LED should me so minimal that you could have 100 leds on that circuit and not have any problems.
Are you sure the switch isn't messed up?
I think you are just over thinking this.
Just run 12 volts to the switch, then out to the lights with grounds on each light. On the switch, a ground should be added to the 3rd terminal to light up the led.

[texanidiot25]

ANdy4639, the LEDs in the headlights pull so little current there's no need for relays in this setup.

Andy #2
It's a brand new switch from radio shack, but "I can't return that" : / It's opened, dear lord.

So ground the ACC lead? I'll try it tomorrow. The package didn't have any real wiring info on how to do that switch so that the switch's LED didn't suck power from the circuit to light up.

As I have it wired now, power from the batt (and fuse block) goes to the drivers LED bulb, then then it splits into parallel between the two LED bulbs. The wire coming from the passenger side bulb runs into the cab, through my switch (in positive, out GND), and then grounds. I have a cheapy toggle on now, but it's falling apart, that plastic POS.

The LED one is the cheapest switch RS had that didn't feel like it was a POS. Would like to get it to light the damn lights with out running them at 6v

[mr48chev]

Ok I had to read this three times to make sense of it and figure out what you were attempting to do and had done.

On the switch you have the
power pole connects to your 12 V power source.

The ACC pole connects to your colored lights in the headlights

ACC by the way means accessory.

The ground connects to ground to let the light in the switch work.

Your wire from the acc should go to the lights.
It connects to one wire off each light.
The other wire off each light is grounded to the core support.
This is a simple circuit and should be easy enough to do unless you try to over think it.

From reading your last post the way you had it set up was all wrong and completely backwards of a correctly wired system. You were using the switch as a connection to ground when on this system it should be used to switch the power on.

[Longhorn Man]

I think you may have your terminology backwards here and causing your problem.... that or I just can't follow you here. (it is late) Do you have power in on one wire, then out the other wire to feed the other light, and then out the other wire on the second light to the switch?
If so, that is in series, and is why your lights are dim.
It really sounds to me you are making it harder than it has to be... you basicly have twice as much wire run as needed from what I see. you have power going from the fuse box to the lights then back up to a switch to a ground?
If that is right, then you can get rid of 1/2 that wire by running power from the fuse box, to the toggle, out the toggle and to the lights. Have the lights ground on the core support. Then, to make your toggle light up, ground the acc terminal on the toggle. On most of the lit up toggles, ACC is the center toggle, and it means the accessory being the light on the switch, since what ever you are turning on is the load, not the accessory.

[texanidiot25]

This helps, I'm tired so my explanation has been poor. This is the current setup

Light are parallel, honestly it's a simple circuit that works with a regular toggle, but when this little switch with the LED screws it all up (for my brain). I've ran it off the fuse block I have under the hood because all the accessory stuff we've added has been done on another harness, basically. Just to leave the original wiring alone, it was a mess to get right in the 1st place from one PO. I'll just run off the unfused ign off the fuse block for this now..

Just had no idea exactly how to wire up with this little LED switch. The package had no wiring details on it so I was just guessing.

I'll try your suggestions tomorrow.

Edit:
This is what you suggest, correct?

[Andy4639]

As stated in first post you don't need a relay but the wiring is the same.

ACC wire from switch to whatever it is you are wanting power too.Look at this drawing and just leave the relay out. Hope this helps you.

+ of switch = hot wire with inline fuse from battery or fuse block your choice.

ACC = out of switch to both lights

switch ground = ground to frame so the switch light is on/off with switch



This is correct

[texanidiot25]

Right on, thanks!