Blue Window Switches

[NT TURBO]

Could someone please help me?The passenger window switch was faulty on my N/A XR6 with front only power windows.I have a new switch from ford and it is an illuminated one,Once fitted to the car with lights on,no illumination of switch.Any offers of help would be greatly appreciated.

OK, can't help myself, I have to know - Premium sound?

[Cam]

If it doesnrt light up how do you know it is one with the LEDs in it? - Did they tell you?

Anyway - if you dont have premium sound the reason it doesnt light up (if it does in fact contain LEDs) is that you are missing the extra wire in the harness that provides the ground path.

[Guest sonia'sXR]

Thanks for the quick response.It does not have premium sound and it is definately one with illumination.So please help?

[NT TURBO]

As Cam suggests next step is does it have a the lighting wire to the switch it is blue/red trace from memory? otherwise I think some have wired them to be on all the time as there not visible during daylight anyway.

[Guest sonia'sXR]

It does have the red wire with trace but as far as I can tell there is no power through it

[NT TURBO]

this is a link to a page with word doc of what I had to do blue swicthes

I found that unlike premium sound cars I had a positive feed to the lights, the switch wiring expects a neg input so the circuit runs back to a pos. I had to change the switches circuit so the pos input ran through the circuit to a neg, hope this helps?

[Guest sonia'sXR]

The switch I have got has the led's already built in,but where you NT TURBO have the led is different to mine. As I do not have a Digital camera I cannot post pictures to show. On mine the LED'S are on each end and where your bridged solder is, looks like the resistor on mine.Mine even has the extra pin,I think the problem is in the wiring to the switch

[Cam]

Can you do the following please (assuming you have a multi meter):

What is the voltage on the red wire with the switch module unplugged and lights off (compared to chassis)

What is the voltage on the red wire with the switch module unplugged and lights on (compared to chassis)

Lets assume it’s a +ve voltage.

You have 3 options.

1. (Easy option)

Cut the red wire and connect the switch side of it to the chassis.

This will give the switch the connections it needs to light up.

However this will mean that the lights are on whenever there is power to the windows

2. (Harder option - good soldering skills needed)

Unsolder the LEDs one at a time and re-solder them back the other way around (reversing the polarity of the LED)

Then you will need to re-wire the +ve side of the LEDs to connect to ground (by cutting the tracks that run from the led to the +ve rail and soldering a length of insulated wire from the LED to the ground rail.

This will give you normal operation - I.e. on only when they should be

But it would be a lot of work and unless you are really up to it you could stuff them totally!!!

3.

Cut the red wire feeding the switch

Create a small circuit that will take the +ve signal from the red wire and create a switch to ground.

This could be done in a lot of ways. The easiest way would be to connect the red wire (the harness side not the switch side) to one side of the coil of a relay. The other side of the coil should be connected to the chassis - so should the switch contact of the relay. The NO (normally open) contact of the relay should be connected to the other side of the cut red wire (the one leading to the switch assembly).

This will cause the switch side of the red wire to be pulled to ground whenever there is a +ve voltage on the harness side of the red wire.

Instead of using a relay a transistor based approach could be taken using a single PNP (BC557 or similar) and a 20K resistor - this would be cheaper and much smaller.

Using a small piece of vero typing board connect the 20K resistor to the base of the PNP resistor. The other side of the resistor is to be connected to the harness side of the red wire. Then connect the switch side of the red wire to the collector of the PNP transistor. then connect the emitter of the PNP transistor to the chassis - and there you have the same result for 30cents and much smaller.

[Guest sonia'sXR]

Mmmmm, Not quite sure what to do now ,might have to suck and see for a few days while I pluck up the courage to attack the wiring

[XR6TK1W1]

Sonia'sxr, Just curious do you mean the passenger side switch has been replaced only? And if so are you going to upgrade the Drivers side as well?