Electronics help asap

[SilverEcstasy]

Okay, so I'm sure you've seen my "Need help from the electronically blessed" thread. My plan was to install 2 9" neons under the dash, wired to a 3-way switch so middle would be off, one position would manually turn on the neons, and the other would make the neons turn on with the headlights.

This diagram was posted on the thread, and I wired everything as it said. (well, Alex did, thanks man!)

We tapped a 12v power source from the cigerette lighter and all of a sudden my cig lighter stopped working! Found out the fuse blew. So we replaced it with a 30 amp fuse rather than 20, and we could hear the relay clicking, but no neon turning on. I'm really really confused and don't know what to do about it. Anyone with knowledge, please help!!

Equipment used:
Single post, single throw 40 amp relays
8 amp 3 position switch
16 gauge wire

[GrandAmSC/T]

Well do your neons have a good ground? on your switch can you flip them on manually and do they light then? if not then its your ground. If they come on fine in the manual position then its obviously something with your relays.

[SilverEcstasy]

Originally posted by GrandAmSC/T
Well do your neons have a good ground? on your switch can you flip them on manually and do they light then? if not then its your ground. If they come on fine in the manual position then its obviously something with your relays.

Hmm..they don't come on at all. I can hear the relays clicking when I flip the switch though. I guess its the ground then?

[Dan00GPGT]

You must have a wire in the wrong spot somewhere. If you have it wired as the diagram showed then when you move the switch to the standard "ON" position, the neons should come on. The relays aren't even involved at that point. It takes a +12 volt source, routes it through the switch directly to the +12 volt input on the neon tubes. The tubes are then grounded through the car body. If THIS doesn't work, you need to recheck your wiring, something is wrong.

[GrandAmSC/T]

Originally posted by Dan00GPGT
You must have a wire in the wrong spot somewhere. If you have it wired as the diagram showed then when you move the switch to the standard "ON" position, the neons should come on. The relays aren't even involved at that point. It takes a +12 volt source, routes it through the switch directly to the +12 volt input on the neon tubes. The tubes are then grounded through the car body. If THIS doesn't work, you need to recheck your wiring, something is wrong.

Yeah really. Also do you have a power meter or even a cheap power meter that has the probe and the light inside and the alligator Clip that clips to a ground. If not buy one they are like 10 bucks and you can see if you have power to the neons or where your power is lost.

[Dan00GPGT]

Not to undermine the first diagram or to completely change your wiring, but here is what I would do:

http://user.pa.net/~dannkel/misc/wiring1.gif

This method uses one SPST relay, any switch capable of handling less than half an amp, and some small gauge wire.

The way it works is this.... wire the switch so that there is a single output. This is done so you can wire in multiple triggers. You need the dimmer to be able to trigger the setup as well as a constant +12 volt source. Basically you wire the switch so that the single input now becomes a single output.

OFF position. In the OFF position there is nothing to supply a positive voltage to the relay coil. since that can never happen, the contacts inside the relay can never be closed regardless of what the dimmer wire does. The neons will NEVER come on.

ON position. This takes the +12 volts you wire into the switch and immediately transfers it to the relay coil. The other end of the coil is hardwired to ground so the relay immediately closes the internal contacts which supply +12 volts to the neon input lead. The neons are hardwired at the other lead directly to ground. The dimmer wire cannot affect this operation either as it is isolated as another input.

AUTO position. This position waits for the parking lead or dimmer wire to apply +12 volts before it transfers that voltage to the relay coil. Once the coil is energized it closes the internal contacts which supply +12 volts to the neon input lead. The neons are hardwired at the other lead directly to ground.

Should work really well and since you're not dragging large amounts of current through the switch (under a half an amp) you can use a very small switch.

In your post you said you blew the cigarette lighter fuse. You then replaced the 20 amp fuse with a 30 amp fuse. Go now and IMMEDIATELY replace it with a 20 amp fuse. You NEVER replace a fuse with one of a higher rating. You run the risk of fire and damaging your wiring.

Also take notice of the fuse I placed in the circuit above going to the neon leads. You should place a low amperage fuse there that is slightly above the normal rating of current your neons draw. If the neons draw 3 amps put a 5 amp fuse in there. If they draw 5 amps put a 10 amp fuse in there. Do not just stick a 30 amp fuse in there because it's what you had laying around. The wires running to the switch, and relay input coil lead and output coil lead can be small gauge wire. The wires going from the input to output terminals should be large enough to handle the current draw of your neons.

I'm not sure if your relay is laid out the same as the one in my diagrams but you should put your wires into your relay using the same design.

Hope this helps, I made an animation showing current flow below:

http://user.pa.net/~dannkel/misc/wiringani.gif

[Vintalage]

This is good info. I may want to use this in the future except the neons would be under the body of the car instead of inside the car. But I can't seem to figure out why a relay is needed. Why can't the on/off/on switch perform the operation without a relay? This is a similar kind of method used in the dome lamp (on/off/auto) and I don't hear a relay clicking so what makes that different from this setup?

[Dan00GPGT]

You could do it the same way without the relay. The relay is in there so you can use small gauge wiring and switches to control the neons.

[ViperGTSR]

mike you know what, now that i think of it its probably that sheissy ground down there, lets change that out and see what happens.

[SilverEcstasy]

Originally posted by ViperGTSR_500hp
mike you know what, now that i think of it its probably that sheissy ground down there, lets change that out and see what happens.

Alex, I work 10-6 on Wednesday. You wanna work on it then? I'll be home probably bout 6:30 at the latest.

Dan, thank you very much for the diagrams and the explanations. I just hope I don't blow another fuse just by putting the 20 back in. We didn't put a 30 amp fuse in there cause had one lieing around. It only seemed logical that it would keep it from blowing if it would just allow more power through.

So should we just disconnect the second Relay and start over with the wiring assembly? Also, how am I supposed to know which tab is what, or are all the tabs universal on a relay?

[Dan00GPGT]

That's up to you how you want to go about wiring it. If it were up to me I would want it wired as simply as possible with as few components as possible. Less to break and less to have issues with. :)

If you bought your relay at Radio Shack, it should have come with a diagram showing what lead was what. If it didn't try looking the part number up on the Radio Shack website. They have technical documents on there that say terminal 85 is blah blah blah. That should help you out.

If you blew a 20 amp fuse with a pair of neons wired into your cigarette lighter, it's my opinion that you may have had something wired wrong. Why the 30 amp wouldn't have blown is beyond me though. Just keep in mind that that circuit was meant to handle 20 amps, no more. If you do put higher fuses in you very easily could overload the wiring. Once you melt a wire under the dash you might be looking for it for years to correct it. That is, if the wire doesn't start a fire first. :confused: Do you know what each of your neon tubes are supposed to draw current wise?

Good luck.

[JAFO2RHh]

Dan, nice diagram, beat mine all to hell ;)

However, unless the switch has 2 seperate inputs, it's not going to work. If you connect the constant 12V input and the dimmer wire input together his dash lights are going to light up. That's why I suggested the 2 relay setup.

[Ryan]

Originally posted by JAFO2RHh
Dan, nice diagram, beat mine all to hell ;)

However, unless the switch has 2 seperate inputs, it's not going to work. If you connect the constant 12V input and the dimmer wire input together his dash lights are going to light up. That's why I suggested the 2 relay setup.


You can still do it with one, just diode isolate the the switch from the relay so you can't feed current back into the car's dimmer circuit.

Also, why are you using the dimmer wire. You should be using the parking light wire. Dimmer is a PWM signal and will do all kinds of crazy stuff if you are not careful.

[JAFO2RHh]

Correct, but I'm just a relay kinda guy.

As for the parking light/dimmer issue, yes, I agree the parking light wire should be used.

Originally posted by GAGuru2



You can still do it with one, just diode isolate the the switch from the relay so you can't feed current back into the car's dimmer circuit.

Also, why are you using the dimmer wire. You should be using the parking light wire. Dimmer is a PWM signal and will do all kinds of crazy stuff if you are not careful.

[Dan00GPGT]

Originally posted by JAFO2RHh
Dan, nice diagram, beat mine all to hell ;)

However, unless the switch has 2 seperate inputs, it's not going to work. If you connect the constant 12V input and the dimmer wire input together his dash lights are going to light up. That's why I suggested the 2 relay setup.

The way I have my diagram setup is so that you have a switch with a single output and three inputs. I was assuming he bought a rocker switch with three different positions. With that type of switch it will work. Had he bought a simple on/off switch it would not have worked. A switch with three outputs and a single input can easily be rewired to be a switch with three inputs and a single output as well.

I had the dimmer wire listed only because I wasn't familiar with the GA setup. It should have read parking light input.

[JAFO2RHh]

I see, the switches I was looking at all had a single input. Ya know what they say, there's more then 1 way to skin a cat ;)

[SilverEcstasy]

Okay we're going to do your diagram Dan. What wire is the parking light, and where is it located?

[SilverEcstasy]

:clap:Yessss!!:clap:

After 2 days of working on it, it finally worked! I want to deeply thank Dan and Jaf for their diagrams and assistance, everyone else for their suggestions, Aaron (AaronGTR) for your assistance over the phone, Alex for your help at my house (deeply appreciate it!) and Kent (mi2kga) for helping me out over the phone all the way out in Indiana! I definately owe you alot, you helped make everything work! I'll have pics up probably after the meet on Friday. Thanks so much!!

[ViperGTSR]

yea even if i did come home late!:rage: jk

KENT IS THE MAN!

And no prob mike it was fun, and def a learning experience. Turns on with the lights perfectly and works 100%!

[Dan00GPGT]

Ok guys, so which one of us wants to submit the bill? :D Glad you got it working, THIS is what the site is about. Getting things done for other members. :wave:

[SilverEcstasy]

Originally posted by Dan00GPGT
Ok guys, so which one of us wants to submit the bill? :D Glad you got it working, THIS is what the site is about. Getting things done for other members. :wave:
Amen. Thanks again Dan! Its great, I press the keyfob to unlock/lock my doors, and the headlights, parking lights, dash AND neons blink!

[Vintalage]

Originally posted by MikeNT256

Amen. Thanks again Dan! Its great, I press the keyfob to unlock/lock my doors, and the headlights, parking lights, dash AND neons blink!

hmmm, the key fob light blink didn't even cross my mind. Must look cool. Great job!

[SilverEcstasy]

Originally posted by Vintalage


hmmm, the key fob light blink didn't even cross my mind. Must look cool. Great job!

Thanks! Again, I owe it all to everyone who helped.

What you'll need for this project:
Dan00GPGT's diagram (lol)
1 single post single throw relay (SPST)
1 3 position spst toggle switch, preferably 5 amps or more (on-off-on. Not a momentary switch)
Lots of wire!
Female spade connectors
Wire tester probe or a multimeter
crimping/stripping tool

(Kent i give you full credit, so i'm not taking credit for saying "WE" found this out ->)
The way that we found to get them to turn on with the headlights was on the passenger side, under the beige door sill panel, there are 3 bundles of heavily taped up wires. There will be one large harness, then just go about 2 inches back to a seperate wrap of wires, carefully cut the tape off and you'll find a multitude of colored wires. You need brown and there are a bunch of them, so using the wire tester probe, turn the parking lights on and see which brown wire has power. You should find atleast 2 or 3. You can tap into any of them. An inline fuse couldn't hurt but you can do with out it.

[mi2kga]

I would recomend using a digital multi meter when testing wires, but otherwise right on track. Also if you dont want them to blink when the remote is used let me know and i will show you how you can do it; although it looks cool, it may slightly reduce the life of the neons.

Kent

[SilverEcstasy]

Originally posted by mi2kga
I would recomend using a digital multi meter when testing wires, but otherwise right on track. Also if you dont want them to blink when the remote is used let me know and i will show you how you can do it; although it looks cool, it may slightly reduce the life of the neons.

Kent

How come it'll reduce the life of the neons?? I was thinking about getting the Street Glow Music Interface, you can plug in the neons to it and make em flash to the music.

[mi2kga]

Not a big deal, but its like the whole cigarette smoking thing. Some people smoke and live to 100 and others die of cancer at 45... But it can reduce the life of the electronics in the neon. Think of it like a switch, the more you work it the faster it wears out.

Kent

[scl789]

why the hell dident u just wire them to the fuse box.......? get a 2 way switch u could of wired them to ur turning signols that way when the car is off the lights go off. and when the car is on u can either turn them off or make them "automatic" by leaving the switch on.....

[ViperGTSR]

he also wanted the option f turning them on whenever he wanted...

[SilverEcstasy]

Originally posted by scl789
why the hell dident u just wire them to the fuse box.......? get a 2 way switch u could of wired them to ur turning signols that way when the car is off the lights go off. and when the car is on u can either turn them off or make them "automatic" by leaving the switch on.....

Why the hell does it matter now? I did it and i'm done and happy with it. I'm not going to shove a **** load of wires in my fuse box and call it a "neat" installation. I wanted it done right and I did get it done right.