Seat Heater Install

The photo doesn't show if the bars on the dials light up. They illuminate orange on the factory seat switches.

not sure if I am talking about the same thing, yes, the yellow indicator lights when you turn it on, the bar to the right of the dial lights up green all the time. sounds like you will have to perform one of your LED modifications.
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not sure if I am talking about the same thing, yes, the yellow indicator lights when you turn it on, the bar to the right of the dial lights up green all the time. sounds like you will have to perform one of your LED modifications.
4.jpg

Actually I'm talking about the little white strip on the dial itself. It doesn't appear to light up like the factory switches.

On another note- you posted this about the wiring:

"The wiring schematic is as follows (this was found by trial and error - the manual the seller sends via email is crap):
Red: Constant power from the battery
Black: Ground
Green: Switched power (control box acts as a relay)
Yellow: Illumination"

Since you connected all your yellows and greens the switch is lit all the time. Seems to me if you connected your yellow wires to a dash light circuit they would only come on with the lights.

I guess I'll find out tomorrow! I'll post the results here.
 
Antman,
The white strip you're talking about does not really light up, no.

And the reason you can't connect green to dash lights is because it has to have power for the warmers to work at all - it acts as a trigger for the internal relay AND as illumination for the green side bars. Also, the yellow wire only lights up the yellow "on" indicator - so you wouldn't want to to tie that in to dash lights either (atleast on my kit that's all the yellow wire operates) .

Actually I'm talking about the
little white strip on the dial itself. It doesn't appear to light up like the factory switches.

On another note- you posted this about the wiring:

"The wiring schematic is as follows (this was found by trial and error - the manual the seller sends via email is crap):
Red: Constant power from the battery
Black: Ground
Green: Switched power (control box acts as a relay)
Yellow: Illumination"

Since you connected all your yellows and greens the switch is lit all the time. Seems to me if you connected your yellow wires to a dash light circuit they would only come on with the lights.

I guess I'll find out tomorrow! I'll post the results here.
 
You'll be so much happier if you pull the seats. It's ridiculously easy and this job would be nearly impossible to do otherwise - there are some rings on the bottom that would be a pain to get to and halving the seat makes the job alot easier as well.


Yes See his photo on 1-1-2013.

Shame you weren't doing his tomorrow, I am in Laurel.

Jnance, yes, we did have the same kit, if you look back 1 or 2 pages, I think we ordered the one someone posted earlier in this thread. it took a while to arrive from china.

I have all the tools I could possibly need, I just dont like working on my car in the parking lot here where I live, I was going to try to install the heating pads without removing the seats, but the more I look at the photos and read, it looks like that is the best way.
 
Actually I'm talking about the little white strip on the dial itself. It doesn't appear to light up like the factory switches.

On another note- you posted this about the wiring:

"The wiring schematic is as follows (this was found by trial and error - the manual the seller sends via email is crap):
Red: Constant power from the battery
Black: Ground
Green: Switched power (control box acts as a relay)
Yellow: Illumination"

Since you connected all your yellows and greens the switch is lit all the time. Seems to me if you connected your yellow wires to a dash light circuit they would only come on with the lights.

I guess I'll find out tomorrow! I'll post the results here.

I hope you can figure that out... I wonder if that circuit could be wired to the actual heater switch circuit so it's green only when the heaters are on, instead of when the lights are on.
 
the green lights are a little too bright at night for my taste, I will have to explore ways to dim or eliminate them.

Planning on installing the heater pads next weekend. weather permitting.
 
Question- do the white indicator bars on the dials light up?

I'll be installing these on Kraeken's TE on Monday. Keep the pics coming! More pics=less time figuring stuff out for me.

Guess I know which door to knock on after I buy these parts :wave:
 
Antman,
The white strip you're talking about does not really light up, no.

And the reason you can't connect green to dash lights is because it has to have power for the warmers to work at all - it acts as a trigger for the internal relay AND as illumination for the green side bars. Also, the yellow wire only lights up the yellow "on" indicator - so you wouldn't want to to tie that in to dash lights either (atleast on my kit that's all the yellow wire operates) .

I wired the illumination wire to a dash light circuit. The yellow illumination wire lights up the green bar when the dash lights are on. When the seat heaters are turned on, the yellow indicator light comes on to let you know the heaters are working. This works just like the factory switches, except the bars on the dials do not light up. More in next post...
 
OK- so this took us 8 hrs today. I could probably do this in half the time now though.

While not terribly hard, THIS IS NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART. Taking the seat apart and putting it back together can be confusing. We had a left-over plug that we couldn't find a home for. Turned out to be for the seat recliner motor so we had to do a little disassembly. There are lots of pitfalls- wire routing has to be correct, clips that are difficult to remove, hog-rings to cut, wires that hold the seat cover in place to pull out/reinstall. Having never worked on upholstery before we had some figuring out to do!

To make things worse, Jnance50 sent me a PM offering his assistance that I read when we were already 90% done. :dizzy: Thank you for the offer!!!

The wiring part was easy- but how much have I wired? Like I said though, I'm pretty sure I could do this with little drama in 4 hrs or less now. If you want to tackle this set aside at least a full day!

Couple of observations about the kit- The switches are OK- definitely not the same quality as the OEM ones on my truck. They don't light on the dial and the dial has some play in it. The wiring loom, while a little bulky, is well protected and decent quality. The heaters work at least as well as my factory units. Overall definitely worth $70.

No writeup from this one- just a few pics from todays "fun".

No seats.

photo-180.jpg~original




Unless you're prepared to do this to your seats, stay away...


photo-183.jpg~original




Kraeken liked this part. Fishing the wires back thrugh the seat cover/hogrings.

You can take the New Yorker outta NY, but you can't take...


photo-181.jpg~original


photo-182.jpg~original




Anybody have any questions feel free to PM me! A/M
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Hey thanks for finding the correct wiring for the switch lights, where did you tap into the dash lighting?
 
Hey thanks for finding the correct wiring for the switch lights, where did you tap into the dash lighting?

I would like to know as well. I could easily pull my yellow wires and tap them elsewhere. I could've sworn when I test wired mine my yellow wires didn't control the illumination of the green bars (which I thought was weird).

Also, Antman, do you know if you tap them into a dimming circuit if they'll dim as well?
 
Oh no! Bad installation!

firecopy_zps81418996.jpg~original


Seriously though, it worked out well but it was a long day with no time for fun.
 
I would like to know as well. I could easily pull my yellow wires and tap them elsewhere. I could've sworn when I test wired mine my yellow wires didn't control the illumination of the green bars (which I thought was weird).

Also, Antman, do you know if you tap them into a dimming circuit if they'll dim as well?

More I look at the pictures, I think Kraeken's switches are different. I don't remember his being designated as Left and Right. Maybe he can post a photo- he's pretty damn lazy though so I dunno...:drum:

Anyway, [MENTION=73075]axxman[/MENTION], I tapped into the green wire that feeds the little light for the shifter PRND/S display. That wire dims with the dash lights, but the switches do not dim according to Kraeken.
 
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My truck is a burned out shell so I can't take pics. But they are not left/right specific. They also fit right into the spots without any modification. The angles on the switches are a little pointier than the angles in the holes, but you can't really tell.
 
Ahhh ... sounds like axxman and I have a different kit. I didn't think I was wrong on the wiring - that yellow wire on our kits only operates the yellow "on" indicator on the switch (as odd as that sounds) - atleast I'm 95% certain.
 
Thanks guys, Once I get the heating pads installed, I will rewire my yellow wire and see what happens, I ordered off the amazon link earlier in this thread.
 

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