struggling with mictuning switch and relay

I am building a relay box and fuse panel to run a few acc lights on my truck and Ive searched and googled all freakin day.

Here is how I have it set up:

power from battery into 15A fuse -> pin 30
ground from battery -> pin 85
ground from light -> pin 85
power to light -> pin 87

green/yellow wire from switch -> pin 86
black wire from switch -> pin 85
red 1 from switch (closest to green) -> pin 30 also
res 2 from switch (closest to black) -> add a fuse to ign fuse under dash.

the problem: the words "LED Light Bar" light up properly with the ignition on, however the light bar symbol is lit all the time and the light bar does not come on when the switch is activated.

I am at my whits end. Any help?

 

im guessing having the power into the relay on pin 30 and having the power to the switch on pin 30 is causing my problems. Should I have a whole separate fused power source for the switch?

 

Get out your ohm meter and map the switch/relay pin outs, or use your volt meter to trace the circuit.

 

yeah I dont have an ohm meter but I may have figured it out. The green wire from the switch is supposed to go to a power source and I am using pin 30 as that. but I mixed up the green wire from the switch with the red1 wire from the switch. so im gunna swap em and see what that does. let's hope nothing blows up

 

I had nothing but trouble with Mictuning (not wiring, just felt they were not well made). I changed all my switches to CH4X4 and wire the same. Much better quality and brighter but well worth the extra money. I have a total of seven installed and followed this wiring diagram. Hope it helps.

 

that did the trick. its all working as it should now. Words light up with ignition, light bar symbol lights up when the switch is on and the light bar works. Now, to the mods, feel free to leave this up so that others can learn from my mistakes or take it down to reduce clutter.

 

Did you buy the switch as a "blank" with a printed cover? It seems like the "button" might be on backward and the graphic is over the LED for the words (usually wired into the dash light circuit), and the words over the LED for the graphic which should go on and off with the switch position. It's possible that mictuning may have installed it backward and you may want to contact them to see if it can be swapped or if you might need a replacement.

I'd recommend against having the switch wired direct to the battery unless you really want the lights usable with the ignition off. Wiring the relay direct is fine since the switch will control it and having the switch fed by a "switched" circuit will keep the relay off when the truck is off by extension. In the wiring I've done on my truck, I also have the other power wire connected to the dash light circuit (wiring through the "TAIL" circuit or putting an add-a-fuse on that location will also work for that) so that they come on with the rest of the dash lights, but making them work with the dimmer gets more complicated because toyota's dimmer system (at least in the 2nd gen) raises the voltage downstream from the lights instead of reducing the voltage upstream.

I'd also recommend putting the fused wire from the battery onto main relay power pin that feeds the lights unless what you bought is a pre-fab harness kit with the appropriate fusing built into it already. Running the switch of an interior "switched" circuit will cover the protection for the switch and relay operation circuit, and the additional current draw isn't much and won't overload any factory circuit unless you're running 15-20 switches in parallel.

 

thanks Dino, thats is good advice and I so have another CH4X4 switch to install at a later time, it will be interesting to see the difference in the two.

 

thanks bmgreene, it was not a blank switch, and I seemed to have gotten to the bottom of the problem now. Everything is working as it should. I did not want to wire the switch power to something that is switched on via ignition because, as you say, I do want to run the lights with the truck off. I had mixed up my power to switch and out to relay from switch wires. What I sis was put both the power to the switch and power to the relay on the same wire from the batter that is fused with a 15a fuse.

 

glad to hear it all worked out. I've put in a total of 8 additional switches in my truck (with at least two more to go unless I add OBA which would make it three) including winch controls and an additional layer of power switches for the winch (took a lot of searching to find a 400A solenoid relay for that job) and the CB (since I don't always run with the antenna installed, I don't want it to just come on with the switch on the unit), wiring into the dash lights has been my personal gremlin on all of those since the design makes it hard to ID all the wires with a DMM.

I mostly don't trust myself to remember to turn odd stuff that's run straight off the battery, and can't imagine when I'll be using "off road only" lights in a place that leaving the keys in the truck wouldn't be an option, which is the main reason why I've got everything powering from a switched circuit, if my memory is working I've got an add-a-fuse on the circuit for the stereo which also powers a dual aux 12V outlet for my GPS and radar detector. Custom work is definitely a place to set it up for what you're going to use it for though.