Thursday, November 12, 2009

Ignition Switch

The Zilla controller requires two leads from the ignition switch. One that has power when the key is turned to the "Start" position, and the other when the key is in the "Run" position. Today, I thought I'd look into isolating each lead and running an attached line to the electrics bay.

The "Start" position lead was easy to locate. I spliced a new 18 gauge wire to it and ran that to where the Zilla will sit. For whatever reason, the "Run" position lead was much harder to locate. So much so, I haven't found it.

The ignition switch has 4 positions, Off, Accessory, Run and Start. There are 6 lines running to the back of the switch. One of the lines gets power when ever the car has been started, and power is sent to it even after you turn the car off. Only pulling the key removes power to that line. I certainly don't want the car to run until I pull the key out. None of the other leads change state when you move the key through the positions. Now, granted, I've been testing this with a simple continuity test using the power feed and the other lines. I'm thinking that I'm just going to have to wait until I can run power to the switch and measure voltage across each terminal.

I also ran power out to the switch in the fuel door. You may remember that switch will keep the car from starting up when the fuel door is open and the car is charging. That's it for today. Two more things checked off the list.

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