Technical Installed my switch and began popping fuses

[littleyellowcar]

Hey guys,

I finally got around to putting the switch into my GPS yesterday and every time i connected it up, the fuse blew.

All i did was to connect a live and earth off the rear of the cigarette lighter, run these into the switch and then take them off the other side of the switch and connect them to the live and earth of the power for the GPS receiver.

I dont see how this would blow the fuse as all i am doing is extending the wiring in effect.

Does anyone have any ideas as to what is happening???

cheers.

 

[paul_treg]

Hi,
You only need to switch the live wire, earth should be constant feed on dc system.

Thanks
Paul T

 

[littleyellowcar]

the switch needs an earth because of an LED in it.

i daisy-chained the earth from the GPS plug, onto the switch and then from the switch back to the cigarette lighter.

 

[arc]

what switch is it, are you sure its wired correclty. It can't be if its blowing the fuse :/

 

[littleyellowcar]

the switch is towards the bottom of this page under "Assorted Switches" http://www.speeding.co.uk/acatalog/swi.html

There are 3 terminals on the back of the switch, load, supply and earth. I put 1 wire on the load which went off to the GPS plug, 1 off the supply which plugged into the back of the cigarette lighter and 2 wires off the earth - 1 to the GPS and 1 to the cigarette lighter.

 

[arc]

with the earth off, does it still blow it?

got a multimeter? test the terminals, check they are the ones u think they are

 

[rallycinq]

The one marked earth should be a single wire to earth, not any where else.

Cheers

D

 

[littleyellowcar]

I'll go and get a few more fuses now and check out to see if it blows without the earth.

i'll also remove the daisy chain and run a separate earth wire from the GPS plug to the cigarette lighter.

I have got a multimeter, its one of the yellow and blue £5 ones from maplins. I only know how to check voltage on it tho - can i have some quick instructions please

cheers for the help.

 

[arc]

set it to resistance checking mode, should be a Omega symbol. Probe supply and earth. There should be a resistance between them (that off the light thats in there). If it shows 0, or a number near 0 then thats not right.

 

[littleyellowcar]

nice 1 arc - ive been having a fiddle and thought that was right. anyway, i took the switch off again and the fault was immediately apparent - i had wired the load up to the supply and the supply up to the load.

i swapped them over and now it works fine.

Cheers for the advice anyway - i'll know for next time

 

[arc]

glad you've sorted it

 

[The Negotiator]

Glad it's sorted See how useful a multimeter is.

 

[littleyellowcar]

yeah, they are even more useful when you know how to use them