Work Light Wiring advice please

You're going to need at least one relay in all of this to stop back feed.. my suggestion is that you go find a good auto electrician and get it done correctly.

Cheers

Mark T

Gazza,if it is the tailgaters with h/beam is all that you are doing it for, it would be far cheaper & less exhausting to flip your windscreen mirror up.:))
Bob.

Not as difficult as it seems:

Using three of single pole double throw switches.

1) a switch which links the lamp to either the reverse circuit or the other switches. In this way you cannot feed voltage into the reversing circuit accidentally.

2) two switches, one on the dash, one at the rear of the vehicle, wired like the 2way light switches you may have in your home, connecting 12V (probably from your unswitched auxilliary, i.e. fridge, wiring) to the first switch.

I'll try to diagram this - may not be sensible on your screen if you're using proportional spaced characters!
o---
The symbol ----o===
o---
represents a switch which switches the incoming wire on the left to either (not both) of the outgoing wires on the right.

sw1 o----to reversing light circuit
Ground----(LAMP)---o=== sw2 o--------------o sw3
o---------o==== ====o----- +12V aux
o--------------o

sw1 will connect the lamp to either the reversing circuit or the other switches. If sw1 is selecting aux power and only if both sw2 and sw3 are "up" or "down" will they connect aux 12V to the lamp through sw1.

This will do what you describe, though I'm not totally in favour of being able to blind that inconsiderate tailgater! Pretty sure it's not legal either!

HTH

John

Okay Gazza, seems like the 1st 2 responses weren't quite what you may have been looking for.......

Here is what I have done on mine:

I have a SPDT switch on the dash. SPDT stands for "single pole double throw". The one I have only has 2 positions....both are "ON". You can also get a similar switch with a "centre = "OFF" position.

The back of the switch has 3 tabs.

The positive wire from the rear light/s goes directly to the centre tab of the switch.

One of the outer tabs on the switch goes to the reverse light of your vehicle. You may need to run that through a relay and/or beef-up the fuse for your vehicle's reverse circuit.

The other outer tab goes to your auxilliary battery (via a fuse).

So, thus far, we have the light operational whenever you select reverse (that is the position the switch will normally be in as it means the light is off, except for when you select reverse gear). If you want to turn the light on to either flash some idiot behind you, or to illuminate a gate you've just passed through so the missus can see where the chain goes etc, or use it to illuminate under the bonnet of a toyota that you've just pulled up in front of which has it's bonnet up etc etc.....then all you've gotta do is flick the switch the other way and on comes the light.

Now, in my case, I have found this to be enough trickery to get me out of trouble. I don't really think you'll need another switch at or near the light in all honesty.

However, assuming you really DO want that feature, it would be a simple matter of running another wire from the light (positive), to a simple ON/OFF switch and then on to the battery (again, via a fuse). The only time you would need to use that switch would be if you have just got out your seat and gone round the back of the vehicle to get something, realised you've forgotten to turn the light on before you got out, and then felt terribly upset that you've had to walk the 3 meters, back to the driver's door to turn the dash switch on.....hahahaha

Hope this helps.

Relay at the back.
Earth as you said near the light, also grab an earth for the relay and run to 86 or 85.
Fused hot wire + (unswitched) to your relay to 30, then out of relay to light from 87.
Then switching signal from reverse globe run through a dash switch and back to signal input (86 or 85) on relay (this enables you to turn off rear light when reversing (not needed around town).
Finally find a hot 'ignition on' wire and run through a 'momentary on' push button switch and join 'out' wire from this onto 'out' wire from your rev light dash switch.
Done.

all the above will work but just make sure you don't flash a cop or the rta you will get a very unpleasant experience. i had a similar set-up on my old 4x4 f100 & got pinged bigtime after a rta car would not turn his lights down (he was within 50 meters of me ) of course i got a little peeved at this after 5km of this treatment & gave him a blast with the light. well it cost me a defect & quite a few dollars. just be carefull.

GazzaS

I know that I have a special taste in everything and this includes auto electrics.
So my solution is somewhat different to the others.. but more expensive, as
special taste usually is, but also safer.

First you wire a standard el cheapo car relais.
One wire from the reversing light (you can tap into at the rear - I usually tap into everything in the front and run to a separate fusebox) to one side of the coil with a 4amp diode (or a few 1A in prallel - 10c each) of the relais .. the other side of the coil of that relais goes to ground. Then you take a cable from the battery over a fuse (I do that at my separate fusebox) and run it to one side of the switch of the relais. The other side of the switch goes to your worklight(s). Now to the activation from rear and front ... for such applications I do not use switches because I never use the full current wire as a switched wire ... I run a bunch of flat cables with pcb connectors through the vehicle and hook up my control lines to that. Low current and smaller devices and mostly mounted on pcb's (printed circuit boards).. One can also use multi strand round cables (say 32 or so ) , depens on the application .. once you have a few strands laying around the vehicle its always very convenient to use because you don't start fiddling in cables all the time. as switches I use holding chopper relais (not self latching) and switch the on/off line with that. The reason is I can use simple push switch with integrated led (for state) and the relais go in neutral position when I switch of ignition. You can wire the positive to such a relais from position 1 of the ignition switch (radio position) or position 2 depending on when you want to be able to use the device.
Assume position1: so from the radio power or direct from the ignition switch I (I usually go into the fuse box) I wire to the coil of the chopper (normally I have a master control switch (a physical switch) before I branch of my connections to all the secondary choppers. This enables me to make master off for all my additional wiring... the other side of the coil (chopper) goes to the push button and the other side of the push button against ground. With one push the relais goes on with another push it goes off. With ignition off all choppers go off. Self latching relais stay in their position at the time (internal mechanics). They can also be useful because they memorise the last position, but in this case you want all off when you start driving. You could even wire a relais into the transmission switch (Position P) to make sure that you switches only work when in P. You take a wire from the ignition 1 again to one side of the chopper switch and the other side goes via diode again to the same pin of the power relais as you have connected the other diodes previously. Make sure the diodes are in the correct direction (Marking towards the relais). Now you take a small cable from the output of the chopper you just connected (same cable as to the power relais) and wire it back to the push switch led positive and a ground to the other side. The led will show the position (Note: You may need a resistor in the positive line to the led.- if you have a simple bulb thats not necessary. I use only LED .. ). You now can wire as many push switches with LEDS in parallel to the first and they all will work the same.
Unlike all toggle switches this solution can be extended to a remote controlled (wireless or via PC) because no physical state is fixed and can be controlled via interface cards. I actually plan to do this in my new truck and an in dash ITX based PC with VGA screen (can be done cheap nowadays with all parts on ebay readily available) and a USB interfaced control card for in/out signals .. so I can simulate all my switches and controls on the touch screen .. I may not even use the physical push switches anymore .. have not decide on that yet ...
I encourage everyone who is interested in that to setup a wire example and try it out on a table with short wires ... it is worth learning because you can do so many things and easily have a control unit in the dash or the camper or even in the pocket ... I create my holding relais myself (using 2 coil 8 pin relais) since I buy a bunch and use it for all kinds of purposes. They also can go into a socket for easy replacement.

If you wanna go that route and want to learn how to do it then let me know.
regards
gmd

well .. a couple of things ..
the fact that he says he is a novice does not mean one should deprive him of the information that it can be done differently and more elegantly than the average joe autoelectrician will do it .. it is not difficult that if one would really want to do it I have no problem instructing someone how ..

secondly... it is far less complicated than it sounds by first reading it ...
cabeling effort is not more than any of the other solutions

it is safer than any other solution .. works only in P (when wired accordingly) and as soon as you start driving it resets and the light, will not turn on while driving etc.

KISS .. what I have to say is .. simple things amuse simple minds .. the way I wire my electronics is not less reliable at all .. in the contrary ..

I am working on the concept for my new truck and intend to publish a website on that as I go along .. I have done quite a bit of research and testing on state of the art equipment so I thought it might be useful for others who want to do a bit more than just the average Redarc installation .. there is not much on the web about these components and its use.

This includes:
Balmar Alternator 160A IG with Max-Charge Regulator
Sterling Alternator to Battery Charger with Remote Control
Balmar Duo Charge
Yandina battery combiner
Outback MX-60 Solar controller
Xantrex 3 bank 50Amp 4-stage charger
TM500 Battery Monitor
and various other components like low voltage cut offs etc.

When you understand touch control concept and how to wire it additional controls are very simple to achieve .. it is a bit like adding a third light switch in a room with two switches crosswired ... expansion is much more effort once hardwired..
I like flexible solutions ..

And it has nothing to do with doing something because somebody said it can't be done ... far from it ... I do it because I can and enjoy and nicely automated solution ..

I was actually thinking about a serial bus installation with address and function decoding but this would be outside my personal KISS concept and has a few other remifications .. so I will have a couple of embedded PCs communicating via ethernet and relais control cards for input/output.

The fun part will be installing the voice modules for the alarm with the multizone sensors and trigger of different voice messages depending on the persons position. Thats just for fun .. :)) The 24/7 video surveillance is a necessity ...
All this will be documented of the next 12 - 18 months.

And another fun thing with some practical background is to run an automotive diagnostic tool on an ITX PC connected to the OBDII - CAN displaying all 6000+ sensor values of the truck on the little in dash VGA screen ..

I mention this because there might be some people out there thinking along those lines but not finding any info on the web .. no problem .. contact me ..

have fun
gmd

yes you did ..
thats another example of half done solutions ..
it is easy to avoid this at page generation time ..
same with easy link to embedded pics ..
but what do I know .. rofl ..

have fun
gmd

thanks all for the advice - looks like a project for this weekend.

I take on board the comments about dangers of flashing drivers behind with the light - promise I won't do it when they are real close and likely to blind them.

Why cant you keep it super simple with one dash mounted switch controlling a relay that powers your light .

This keeps wiring really simple .

I have this set up , and include a plug near the towbar , I have made an extension lead with a similar plug on one end and female cigarette lighter on the other .This lets you run your fridge in the tent or your versa lite without leaving your vehicle open.

Surely if its too dark when you are reversing you can work out to turn the light on , also you can get work lights with a switch on them allowing your control from the rear of the vehicle.

I agree with the KISS principle , but also think the less you mix your own wiring with the vehicles the better.

Glenn.