Switch Panel and Loom
Turbo Mini Forums

I'm currently working on sorting out all of the electrics in our car and wondered if anyone knew of any online retailers that sold decent quality toggle switches, fuse boxes, relays, cable etc at reasonable prices?

Cheers

John

Ive used these chaps before and they seemed very good

http://www.vehicle-wiring-products.co.uk/V...epage/home.html

Also www.nfauto.co.uk are cheap and cheerful

'Where does the engine go?'

http://www.polevolt.co.uk/

Cheers for the replies, best get the wiring diagram finished and figure out exactly what i need

Agree with Nic, http://www.vehicle-wiring-products.co.uk/V...epage/home.html were very good for me.

Finding an off/on/on toggle switch was my problem (side & headlights), the "standard" seems to be on/off/on - leaving the switch out of kilter with all the others. Depends how anal you are about the switch positions all being "up" when off. I'm very. And sod's law says it's the one swith you'll knock to "on" and find your battery drained.

Anyway, you can work round it with a "normally on" relay or something. Effectively is's a relay that's naturally "on" (when the toggle switch is off; middle) and the relay is switchhed "off" when it gets some juice (i.e. the toggle switch turns it "off" when up).

There's probably some proper electical terms I should use, but I'm a mech. eng. Electrics are a bit of a black art, I have to draw to understand it!

Editted:
Holding the relay "off" will also slowly drain you battery, I'm going to have to re-wire the lights so they only come on at ign position 1. Which might fail an MOT so I'll need to swap back for MOT-day. That's anoher matter though so I'll post separately rather than hi-jack your thread!

Edited by Pottsy on 13th Jan, 2009.

Here's another...

http://www.autoelectricsupplies.co.uk/

vehicle wiring products and polevault are also both on my list of suppliers but I'm doing my list of cable and parts now and (so far) autoelectrics seem best.

Schrödinger's cat - so which one am I ???

Vehicle Wiring Prods get my vote.

I was saying to him last night that the quality of a lot of this on-line stuff is questionable and going for the cheapest will be the wrong solution.

I have two of these plastic blade fuse holders in my car and they are both crap. It takes several minutes to change a fuse as the fuse never wants to fit between the tangs in the holder.

Proably best we see what's on offer at Bingley.

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

John.

You could obtain some Savage engraved switches from Demon Tweeks instead of a double rocker then make up your own 5 switch panel to fit them (you will however need a sidelight switch and a separate headlight switch).

I've attached a couple of shots from my van showing these switches fitted. The blue LED backlight when the switch is depressed is very good. The hazard has a flashing red backlight.

They're relatively easly to connect up too.

I've also added a shot of the fuse box and relay box on the van. These parts are from Vehicle Wiring Products and slot together. Again, really easy and good quality. I've got this lot in my LH glovebox and the main earth is nice and dry, up above the heater on the bulkhead out of the wet.

If you PM me, I've got all the wiring diagrams in an Excel file if you want them, including Boost, Water injection, megasquirt connection, lights, etc......

Hope this helps.

Richard.

Attachments:

701.14kb

681.21kb

Minivanless, but reluctantly happy living with the decision. There'll be another one day.
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=minimadmotorman#p/u

Polevolt have a better selection of connectors and terminals, plus they are only down the road

VWP are better for a larger range coulour wire.

I use both

Now that is a nice dash!

as it happens I've just bought a similar relay pack and fuse box. I've also been looking at those switches. They're not cheep, but they are def worth it.

They are a little cheeper here:

http://www.speeding.co.uk/acatalog/swi.html

With free delivery too. You can get different colour bulbs for them so that you can co-ordiante them with you're other clocks. I'll be making an order at some point soon.

Where did you get the cable pulls for the heater/choke?

The cable pull knobs are actually st.steel switch covers from a double pole wall light switch plate bought at B&Q.

I removed them from the plate, trimmed my plastic choke and heater knobs to suit the internal diameter of the stainless jobbies then stuck em on using one of those white ultra strength DIY adhesives.

The plastic ones just looked completely out of place against the rest of the dash.

Rich.

Minivanless, but reluctantly happy living with the decision. There'll be another one day.
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=minimadmotorman#p/u

I still can't believe that you copied my idea before I'd even thought of it!

I happen to have black leather dash rail covers and was going to build a similar switch panel....

You'll be interested in these then .......

Attachments:

87.66kb

Minivanless, but reluctantly happy living with the decision. There'll be another one day.
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=minimadmotorman#p/u

And ....

Minivanless, but reluctantly happy living with the decision. There'll be another one day.
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=minimadmotorman#p/u

Just cant get the second file to load. Should be in here ......

Minivanless, but reluctantly happy living with the decision. There'll be another one day.
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=minimadmotorman#p/u

Wont load - sorry mate.

Its a back view of the switch panel during build, showing the wire positions and connector.

PM me if you want it.

Sorry guys for wasting space. The file wont load.

Rich.

Minivanless, but reluctantly happy living with the decision. There'll be another one day.
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=minimadmotorman#p/u

I'll PM you instead of hi-jacking this thread any further...

Send it my way when you get it Andy. As this was what I was discussing with you.

If something is worth doing, it's worth doing half of.

I ended up using both AES and VWP as neither had everthing I wanted. Polevolt probably did but still don't have an on-line order facility, and phone is fine for a few items but I wanted lots.

Schrödinger's cat - so which one am I ???

Well I can't fault VWP - I only paid for standard postage yesterday afternoon and it arrived by Business Post at 08:30 this morning !!!

All the "lucar" stuff is in this order (along with all the cable as they had a better range of colours) and I would say the quality is average, or what I expected. I ordered all the modern connectors from AES as VWP didn't have the full range and I'm hoping the quality is better, just like a modern car. I'll have to wait and see.

Schrödinger's cat - so which one am I ???