Rocker switch trouble

[smithyd40]

Hi all.

I have just replaced the switches for my bullbar foglights and Narva spotlights from the standard push button (3 wire) to the Narva rocker switches ( see pic below ) I have wired them both up the exact same as both push buttons had the exact same wires. The foglights work fine and the switch lights up correctly.... The spotties switch lights up correctly but the spotties don't cone on.

I wired the black wire to switch terminals 7 and 8.
I wired the red wire to terminals 2 and 6
I wired the white wire to terminal 3.

As stated before, the foglights work fine but the spotlights dont come on.


Any ideas?
Cheers

 

[Old.Tony]

Test if the switch is faulty: connect the wire on pin 2 to the wire on pin 3. The lights should come on. If they don't, there might be something wrong with the driving light relay, or the driving lights have been wired differently.

There are TWO ways to wire up a relay to make it work. A relay consists of a coil with a positive and negative side, plus an input and an output. Usually the input is directly connected to the battery positive (or a source that comes from battery positive). The output goes to the device that's being operated, so that it comes on when the coil is energised.

That's where the change might be, and thus the cause of your issue. Usually you'd connect one side of the relay's coil (pin 86, say) to ground, and switch a positive input to it on pin 85. However, it's just as possible to have pin 85 live all the time, and switch the negative input. I don't like doing it this way - it's confusing (for me, anyway).

The fastest way to tell (which might possibly blow a fuse) is to quickly tap the wire on pin 3 to the wire on pin 7 or 8. You might get a small spark - don't let the wires touch for long at all, just a quick stab - but someone watching the globes of the driving lights should see the element heat up a little as the power flows. If this happens, you have to wire the switch in differently so that negative is sent through the wire on pin 3. If the light within is an LED you'll have to add a relay to the mix - it gets a little complicated, but it can be done.

 

[smithyd40]

Test if the switch is faulty: connect the wire on pin 2 to the wire on pin 3. The lights should come on. If they don't, there might be something wrong with the driving light relay, or the driving lights have been wired differently.

There are TWO ways to wire up a relay to make it work. A relay consists of a coil with a positive and negative side, plus an input and an output. Usually the input is directly connected to the battery positive (or a source that comes from battery positive). The output goes to the device that's being operated, so that it comes on when the coil is energised.

That's where the change might be, and thus the cause of your issue. Usually you'd connect one side of the relay's coil (pin 86, say) to ground, and switch a positive input to it on pin 85. However, it's just as possible to have pin 85 live all the time, and switch the negative input. I don't like doing it this way - it's confusing (for me, anyway).

The fastest way to tell (which might possibly blow a fuse) is to quickly tap the wire on pin 3 to the wire on pin 7 or 8. You might get a small spark - don't let the wires touch for long at all, just a quick stab - but someone watching the globes of the driving lights should see the element heat up a little as the power flows. If this happens, you have to wire the switch in differently so that negative is sent through the wire on pin 3. If the light within is an LED you'll have to add a relay to the mix - it gets a little complicated, but it can be done.

Hi mate, thanks for the reply,

Firstly I have tried connecting the wire on pin 2 to pin 3, the driving lights did not come on.

I then tried touching a wire from pin 3 to pin 7, the lights did not come on but it blows the fuse for the RH high beam, the driving light harness is plug and play from Narva and plugs directly onto the back of the RH headlight.

The driving lights were working with just the push button switch.

From this, Would you assume that the driving light relay is wired correctly?

 

[Old.Tony]

It almost seems as if the switch is wired incorrectly if that's what happened. Pin 3 must be active positive and connected through the high beam fuse - which is fine - that means that your pin 2 is more likely the wire heading to the driving light relay, or there's no relay (which is a concern). How was the other switch connected?

 

[smithyd40]

The other switch was a push button 3 wire switch. Red, black, yellow. It's strange as the switch lights up as it should it's just it isnt turning the lights on. When I reconnect the push button switch the lights work fine.

 

[smithyd40]

Red, black and white wires sorry


EDIT: I just played around with it, connected the positive side of the harness to the two negatives on the switch ( pins 7 & 8 ) and connected the negative on the harness to the two positives ( pin 2 & 6 ).

It works fine now..

Although it works, it confuses me that it is wired up backwards??

Cheers Tony.

 

[Old.Tony]

I'd love to stick a multimeter on it and see what it's doing in both positions, and I'd love to see what the natural connections for the three wires are. I've the feeling that the white wire is the feed from the high beam light, which means it's active positive when high beam is on, and red is the wire heading to the relay.

In that case, I'd put black as you have it, white to pin 3&6 and red to pin 2.

 

[04HUG]

G'day.
The old test light is your friend when playing with "White Man Magic".