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 ;)

My K.I.T.T.s Voice Projection Unit and Switch Pods Buttons Wiring Over View

OK I know from my experience with this project that sometimes it helps to see an over view of the the whole wiring scenario. So I have have just for fun put together a compilation of my diagrams for my Switch Pods and how they are wired to part of my K.I.T.T.s Voice Projection Unit and how the Power Button is wired into the scenario as well. For many who have already wired their dash electronics the Power button located among the P.A.N.P. (Power, Auto, Normal & Pursuit) wiring will be "Old Hat" to them as it's wired the same way. This all assumes you are using the electronics from Knight Rider World.

The way I have this wired is that the Switch Pod Buttons will still make a tone through the Voice Box when pressed with the main Voice Projection Button turned off. I can even disable the fuse block for the Voice Projection Unit at the battery by tripping the breaker switch on the in-line fuse which I have rated at 100 Amps which is 5 Amps just shy of what the entire fuse block is rated for at a max. of 105 Amps, just to be that little bit extra safe. This way I can also control what functions I want my K.I.T.T. to have accessible at any car shows that I may do.

Installing The Molex Connectors For The Switch Pod Buttons

To help make installing the Knight Rider 2 TV Dash a lot easier I started adding in a 12 Pin Molex Connector for connecting my Switch Pod Button wires to the Mini Relays board that will be installed under the OEM plastic dash in the car.


This Molex Connector will be for the left hand Switch Pod Buttons, the right hand buttons will be on a separate Molex Connector depending on what is being hooked up to them. Whatever it may be I can still see them needing to go through a Relay so another Molex Connector will be the logical choice. I still need to add the wires to the connector for the other buttons but I'll do that tomorrow sometime. I'll need to pick up another Molex Connector just to have on hand for when I get around to adding a little extra length to the right hand Switch pod Buttons wires and running them to the Relay board when I figure out what I want them to activate.

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.

Voice Projection Hand Held Unit Dismantle

I dismantled the hand held unit of the "Annunciator 2 in 1 5 tone / 3 tone electronic siren with mic." It appears to be pretty simple, just like figuring out the Switch Pod Buttons I should be able to do the same here and add wires from the button terminals and run them to the switch of a SPST Relay to duplicated what the buttons are doing on this simple circuit board. The micro or mini button on the ends of the two black wires look to be a simple ground momentary switch, in either case a Relay will do the job for that button too. The side button for the Mic appears to be also a simple micro/mini momentary button so again another simple SPST Relay should do the trick. Now those 4 other micro switches I'm not sure if those are momentary buttons or latching, those may be a bit tricky trying to figure out a good way to use my Switch Pod Buttons for those 4. I suppose the other few things are the indicator LED light, Volume Control Knob, the Mic, those items on the board I will need to think about soldering them off of the board, extending their wires and relocating them somewhere. I mentioned in my last post about the Mic being installed into the upper console somewhere, that is certainly a possibility. I suppose the Volume Control Knob could be located beside the Mic along with the indicator LED light. The Circuit board I could mount in up inside of my Knight Rider Dash securely to another bracket I could glass in somewhere.

It's going to be a bit of mucking about with my Multimeter to figure out what is what for sure on this little circuit board and some playing about with some soldering and finer gauge wires, and some fiddling about with Relays but if I'm not mistaken I think it can be done.

Switch Pod Buttons Individual Buttons Diagram Work In Progress

I'm working on another diagram for the Switch pod buttons to work out a way that each button can be assigned separate functions. I'm pretty sure that the oval rectangles I have marked out are the button connections, each one seems to have 4 points, why I'm not sure? But as is so far this is the way that the switch pod buttons from Knight Rider World connect to the Voice Box DTMF tones. This simply makes the buttons produce a random tone when pressed. I think with a little custom wiring they can be made to do different things if run through a Step Relay. I'm pretty sure I've seen some people do this with their Switch pod Buttons but so far I have not been able to find any information shared on HOW they did it.

Switch Pod Buttons Installation

After much tossing and turning in my sleep last night with how to best install my switch pod buttons I came up with an idea that works. Although I would have preferred not to have had screws visible at he front I could not think of a better way given that the buttons board had no mounting holes of any kind, my guess is that they are probably configured for a different switch pod base than the one I'm using so I had to make it work best I could.

What I ended up doing was cutting out 4 pieces of Lexan plastic and contact cementing some thin high density foam rubber onto the back of each piece of plastic, then drill a hole in each side for the screw to pass through. This way the plastic would press against the back of the boards at the top and bottom, the high density foam rubber would act as a cushion to protect the back of the board from any pressure from the plastic as it was screwed down.

I also cut a couple of plastic bezels out of some of that scrap plastic I had from that salvaged old TV set that got dismantled for odds and ends. The screws go right through the face of the switch pod base and to the sides of the switch buttons board and through the holes drilled into the sides of the Lexan plastic strips with the high density foams rubber on the backs of them. I was looking for black screws but no such luck so I'll paint these when it's time. I figure if I'm sort of forced to have screws they might as well blend as much as possible. Overall I'm pretty happy with the way they look. Once painted they should look pretty sharp.

Switch Pod Switches Prep Work

I measured my holes big enough to allow the buttons to poke through the face of the switch pod on both sides. I had to do a little cutting of that aluminum bracing support metal I had glassed in there. It would have been nice to have had measurements for the switches before I had glassed in that metal bracing, but Oh well, that's my impatience to get things done for you. ;) Anyways it was not a super difficult job to Dremel out the aluminum where needed.

The switch pod button fire nicely through the holes and now I need to come up with a good method of securing the buttons in place, preferably in a way that should I ever need to remove them for maintenance I will be able to do it with a minimum amount of fuss.

Here is a shot of one of the switch pod buttons just resting in place seen from the back side of the pod's open back panel. As you can see I did go with the Velcro option of holding a back plate on. Here the back plate is removed so I can get my buttons mounted into the pods. I'm not sure of a good way to do this just yet. Perhaps some kind of bracket shaped sort of like an upside down elongated "U" could be fabricated out of Lexan plastic and then screwed onto aluminum mounting tabs that could be glassed into the back of the pods. Maybe some high density foam rubber on the insides of the plastic "U" bracket would provide enough cushion and support needed to hold the buttons firmly in place? Hmmmm... I'll have to see what I can come up with along those lines, try out a few ideas and see what will look like it will have the best chance of working really well.

Here is a view of me just holding one of the switch pod buttons in place from the front side of the pod. Looks good so far but like I say I just need to work out a good method of securing them in from the back whilst still making them easy to remove at any future time.

The other thing is I need to make sure the right buttons go on the right side, that's if that is even very important or not? I'll have to check some reference pictures and see if there is any right or wrong way to the button order. Seeing how the buttons are removable and replaceable with other buttons I can't REALLY see that being too big on an issue though.