Lower Console Switch Lights As Part Of Dash Start Up Sequence

OK, here is a solution to something that has been kind of on my mind for a little while now....

So the Lower Console's button and switch lights are on all the time currently even if the ignition is off.... not good I know, bad, bad, bad... as these are not LED lights in this buttons and switches and given enough time would drain the battery for sure. So last night I had a thought pop into my head as I learn more and more about what many of the electronics components are capable of... my idea was this:

"Why not run a small 22 AWG wire from the last top countdown indicator on the top of the dash and run that to the base of a Transistor to activate a Relay that would turn on my Lower Console Switch and buttons lights?

That way when the dash did it's startup sequence, upon the lighting of the very last indicator a signal could be sent to activate my Lower Console lights."

Very simple I thought, so I got into a great conversation with Andrea lannaccone on Face Book this morning and we hashed out this wiring scheme. NOT using a Transistor as I had originally imagined but instead using an Optocoupler. Hey whatever works and is simple I always say ;)

You can see in the middle section of our diagram how we have introduced the wiring of the last countdown indicator LED to the Optocoupler which in turn triggers the SPST Relay which sends power to the Lower Console's switch lights making it an interactive part of the Dash start up sequence.... should be pretty cool when wired up and tested out ;)

Parking and Headlights Lower Console Auxiliary Switch Wiring

I have been collaborating with Lambros Vassiliou on Face Book on a wiring diagram for hooking up an auxiliary switch to activate the Parking and Headlights using one of the lower console's SPDT lighted white rocker switches. According to Lambros this diagram should work for wiring up the Headlights switch using this method on the 1982 Trans Am. I'm not sure about later models, I think it may depend on how the switch is wired so you will need to do some checking on that. Now I have not tested this wiring scheme yet. The Diodes that will be used are the 1N4007 Rectifier type (top right), 
the Relays can be SPST or SPDT rated at 20 to 30 Amps, I have a couple of SPST 40 Amp relays so I'll be using those (right).

I think I have everything I need to give this a shot, I need to pick up some more solder and I'm not sure if I want to mount my Diodes onto a small piece of PCB board or just do them as "in-line" Diodes. But it looks like I should be pretty close to doing a video to show how this works. From what I can see of the wiring diagram it looks like it would be easy to even use one of the Upper Console DPDT lighted rockers for the Parking and Headlights too. ;)


Just to clarify, this is what the plug on my Parking/Headlights combo switch looks like. As you can see it has an Orange, Yellow, Brown, White and what looks to be a fat 14 AWG Red wire on it. Now in the diagram above there is nothing happening with the White wire so I'm still trying to get a straight answer on what if anything happens with that wire??

NOTE: 

OK after some Multimeter testing on the stock OEM switch I had kicking around from the parts car it would appear that in the "OFF" position that there is a continuity between the White and Orange wire. Based on those findings I am going to try this diagram suggested by Mark Rolfe out as it seems to make the most sense with the white wire included into the scenario.

Since the white wire obviously has an internal connection on the stock switch in "OFF" position, the first SPDT Relay makes sense as in off position the white wire would be connected to the Red wire (You could use either Orange or Red as both are 12V). I'll be able to test this out when I have a SPDT Relay, right now I just have 2 SPST Relays and I need the one with the extra 87A pin for the White wire.

12V Mini PCB Relays Arrive

FINALLY! The mini Songo 12V PCB Relays arrived!! There was a slight shipment issue according to the eBay seller so I waited a much longer time for delivery but luckily the first batch of 10 have arrived so now I can begin work on my Relay board for my Lower Console makeshift Space Matt buttons I had made out of the old calculator. You may remember from an earlier post. I basically want the Space Matt buttons to activate the DTMF tones generated by the Knight Rider World Voice Box. Now given the configuration of how my Space Matt buttons are wired and that I am NOT an electronics expert by ANY means this was the best and easiest solution I could come up with. Now these Songo Relays are very tiny and will more than do the job needed by my Space Matt buttons to activate one Relay for the DTMF tone for each button and also another Relay for any given function I choose.

Now like I say I had worked out a diagram that should do the job needed for my Space Matt buttons. As you can see here the DTMF tone request pulse is isolated from the button device function activation pulse. Someone more electronics savvy may have another option but this was what I came up with given my limited electronics knowledge and the way my Space Matt buttons were configured. The Songo relays are very small so I can get a lot of them into a small space by soldering them onto some Proto Board and wiring them in accordance to my diagram.

Auxiliary Dash Power Button Option

I have been thinking about the possibility of ever needing the dash to be powered without the car's Ignition switch turned on say in the event of a car show or something. My thought is that one of the Lower Console buttons could be rigged to supply power to the dash that would bypass the need for the Ignition to be turned on as that would be very impractical during a car show. So this is what I have come up with in the way of a wiring diagram to do that. Basically in my case the coloured lighted switches on my Lower Console use a Negative or Ground connection so the other side of the magnetic could of a SPST Relay would connect to 12V, this then would activate the Relay switch which would allow the connection to 12V to flow to the dash electronics effectively bypassing the Ignition Switch.

Rear Hatch Popper Button Relocation

Yesterday I took on the job of relocating my Rear Hatch Popper switch to somewhere a lot more accessible. One of the Switch Pod buttons seemed a logical choice. I decided to use the Switch Pod button on the Drivers window side of the Pod bottom right side button. (left)

The original location for the Rear Hatch Popper was located just above the car stereo next to the AC and Heater buttons. You can see a good example of this in this shot taken very early on last year near the beginning of my K.I.T.T. build. (right) With the Knight Rider dash design this area although not impossible is a little more difficult to get to. So my guess is that a lot of what is there will get relocated or hooked up to some sort of remote access. For now my Rear Hatch was my main concern as with the Taillight Blackouts I got from Knight Designs there is no key access anymore, K.I.T.T. does not have one. So in my case I was able to use the remote solenoid that was hooked up to the button under the dash.

In order to make this work I needed too take out the Rear Hatch button from the stock OEM dash and do a little work on it. I could have simply removed the button and used a couple of spade connectors with wires soldered onto them but I liked the idea of still having the original switch in place as a backup. So I drilled a couple of small holes into each of the switch pins near the base of the switch in order to thread my wires through. I then soldered on the wires to each of the pins and then drilled a couple of holes into the plastic ridge around the switch base. I then thread each of the wires through these holes, this way when the switch gets put back in the wires will not be "pinched."

I then wired the two switch wires I soldered onto the pins up to the Switch pins of a small NAIS SPST Relay that I installed into my Relay board under the stock OEM dash where the original gauge cluster used to sit. (right) This Relay was hooked up to to the Switch Pod Button which uses a positive pulse for the Relay as the ground connection is made on the Switch Pod Switch Side.

Now from what I understand the stock OEM Rear Hatch Popper switch already has a Relay in behind the dash so I may not have even need the Relay but when in doubt, I use one as it's sure not going to hurt, so basically I probably have one Relay on the Switch Pod activating the Relay for the Rear Hatch Popper, kinda funny but no big deal. It works very well as you can see in my Video from my last post ;)

Lower Console Make Shift Space Matt Buttons Additional Wiring Scheme

"Not now Michael, I have a headache"

There may be a better way of doing this but this is for now how I figure I am most likely to approach this particular problem. You see my makeshift Space Matt buttons I made using an old Texas Instruments Calculator are wired like this; All of the buttons grounds are connected but each button makes and individual connection to that ground. Now the Voice Box's built in DTMF random tone generator request a tone by making a connection to ground. You may be begging to see the challenge here ;) So what I have done in this diagram is I have mapped out a way of using two sets of SPST Relays connected to each of the Space Matt buttons individual ground connection wires. What happens here is the first relay in the "Yellow" zone is isolated that it makes the ground connection for the V.B. DTMF tone request connection. The second SPST Relay in the "Blue" zone is isolated in that each one can momentarily activate a device. I could complicate this further by introducing "Step Relays" in order to make the momentary button into a latching button but lets not go there ;) Complicated I know but it will get the job done and do what I need it to do.

Progress, Progress, Progress!

Wow! What a busy day yesterday, at first I didn't feel like I was getting a lot accomplished but at the end of the day I realized just how much I had done, soldering of wires to connectors for connecting to Relays in the dash, hooking up ground connections, putting the shifter knob back in after testing all of the wires running through to my Lower Console, hooking the green and red "?" buttons up to Relays in the dash for turning on the LCD and GPS screens in my Knight Rider 2 TV Dash, and then putting together a video, wow! more done than I thought :)


Here on the left you can see a shot of the shifter knob reinstalled and I even added the "Knight" logo that I got from Michel Hageman a fellow Knight Rider builder friend on Face Book. I even got around to ordering the S-1 Upper Console electronics from Knight Rider World later on yesterday too.

Here's a shot of me fiddling about with all of the wires inside of the car. It's a good thing I make all of those diagrams because all of that wiring gets very confusing after a while and sometimes hard to keep track of. K.I.T.T. is going to need a Manual once he's done lol. Which kind of reminds me that I'll need to do a new diagram of how I have hooked up my Lower Console switches to power my LCD and GPS screens as they are being done through a couple of small NAIS SPST Relays switching on the power side and not the ground as I have pictured in my last diagram.

Here is a couple of shots of my Lower Console installed. You can see how I have my mounting screws going through those side "wings" (top left) I had  glassed onto the console when I made the modifications from a console that covered the e-brake to one that allows the brake to be used, which in some states and provinces is law! if your car is equipped with one it has to be accessible.

Alternate Space Matt Buttons Wiring Scheme

I was having some issues trying to work out a way to utilize each of my Space Matt buttons that I had made out of an old Texas Instruments Calculator. The problem was that the V.B. (Voice Box) random DTMF tone generator needs a ground pulse to activate a random tone, but with this type of button configuration where all of the buttons are connected to one wire (in this case ground) and the other buttons individual connections to that ground it was difficult coming up with a way to activate both a device and generate a tone through the V.B. So I came up with this idea. Seen here in my diagram I have two buttons wired to show a way in which they can all be wired in the same way to do just that, activate a device and generate a tone. In my diagram the ground connection through any one chosen Space Matt buttons will activate the relay's magnetic coil causing it's internal switch to close, in this case the needed ground connection from the V.B.'s DTMF tone generator to ground. It's a bit daunting having to use all of those relays but I can't think of another way off hand how to do this. Maybe those small "Songle" I think is the name of them relays would do the trick for this?

Example Image of "Songle" relay.

Using A Switch Pod Button For Message Centre Cycle Option

After I had conducted my Multimeter test yesterday to determine if those red wires I had soldered onto the Switch Pod individual button terminals were power wires I realized I needed to make a minor change to this other diagram I had done for an option of using one of the Switch Pod Buttons to cycle through the Message Centre messages. The Momentary Button on the Pod closes power to ground which energizes the magnetic coil of the Relay closing the Relay's internal switch and this then if hooked up as a switch between the GND and CYC should cycle the message on the Message Centre.