JunkHeap

Hey all,

I'm working on changing the switch on a Rigid Industries SR-M Pro light kit. The original switch is a double pole double throw switch (on-off-on) that turned on the auxiliary lights when put the jeep is in reverse in one 'on' position, or turned the auxiliary lights on regardless of state of the jeep in the other 'on' state. This setup was how the wiring instructions had me setup and it was AWESOME. Just leave the switch in one of the 'on' states and the switch will automatically illuminate when I put the jeep in reverse so I know the lights are on in back.

Being that I like things to match and look good (typical JK guy), I bought a different double pole double throw switch that looks identical to the regular ARB switch. Being that this is a 'custom' setup, there is no wiring diagram to fit it to the Rigid setup, so I'm stuck trying to figure it out. After struggling for hours over a couple of weeks and blowing 3 different fuses, I have the switch semi working but not how it worked on the original switch.

In one 'on' position, it turns the auxiliary lights on regardless of the state of the Jeep just like the original switch. The other 'on' position only turns on the factory reverse lights in the tail lights but does not turn on the auxilary lights regardless of the state of the jeep. When I put the jeep in reverse, neither the auxilary lights nor the factory reverse lights automatically turn on, only one turns on based on the position of the switch.

Can anyone help me figure out what I am doing wrong? I assume that the wire positions I have it in is wrong, but I don't know enough to figure out what wire goes where.

Here is a picture of the section of the Rigid wiring instructions that explain how to wire the factory switch. It does not explain what the function of each wire is, it only explains where to connect the wires.


Here is a photo of how I wired the original switch (matches Rigid wiring instructions and worked perfectly)


Here are the wiring instructions for the new switch I am trying to use


Here is how I currently have the new switch wired where it semi works. I changed nothing with the wiring other than cutting off the end ends and adding new connectors that fit the posts on the new switch.


I would like to wire it into the dash lights so they illuminate when my headlights are on, but I'm willing to work with either layout at this point! Hopefully someone here can help me figure this out!

Thanks!

JunkHeap

Finally got things to work exactly like the original switch. Two things that I learned that helped out:

1 - 2 pole 2 position switch (on - off - on) posts are generally described as 'A common B'. The instructions that came with the switch are a dumbed down write up that is 50% correct and 100% misleading. The posts do not care if the power is 'incoming' or 'outgoing', all that matters is that the wires connected to posts A and B work with the Common post (A + Common and B + Common). Once I understood that, this was simple. In my case, I needed to wire the switch exactly opposite of how the instructions told me too. As the white wire only gets power when the Jeep is in reverse, it makes that a second power wire with the first power wire being red. The blue wire is then the only wire that controls the lights when any power is applied. That makes white and red wires attach to posts A and B and the blue wire attach to post Common. I did some extra wiring to get the LEDs to work how I wanted them which I did not cover above. I can explain if anyone wants to know.

2 - Remember to check your fuses... I was an idiot and forgot to check the factory fuse for the tail lights in the engine bay fuse box, I only checked the inline fuse for the auxiliary lights. It had blown when I connected the white and red wires while I was mindlessly moving wires around trying to get it to work as intended. Let the public shaming commence...