• Steel Soldiers now has a few new forums, read more about it at: New Munitions Forums!

  • Microsoft MSN, Live, Hotmail, Outlook email users may not be receiving emails. We are working to resolve this issue. Please add support@steelsoldiers.com to your trusted contacts.

Push button light switch

alphadeltaromeo

Active member
1,901
3
38
Location
Alto, GA
Tom...yes, lol, thanks, but I wanted a Christmas pressy if someone was terribly unhappy with theirs. I won't change out for that price...I'd prefer to invest in other options for the deuce.
 

emmado22

Moderator
Super Moderator
Steel Soldiers Supporter
7,058
147
63
Location
Mid Hudson Valley NY
Those switches are really cool, unitl they burn up and dont work. Then your stuck without lights. I think they are the biggest "contractor screwing the Govt" item out there, because they KNOW they can barely handle the 24-28V put out by the vehicle. I dont care how good you ground the switch, they WILL short out. The contractor blames all the shorting outs on "poor grounds", when it is really a bad design.

There are several threads on this subject before.
 

Recovry4x4

LLM/Member 785
Super Moderator
Steel Soldiers Supporter
34,012
1,808
113
Location
GA Mountains
Maybe I got the odd one out. Mine has worked flawlessly for a couple of years now. I thought about getting rid of it but since I took it out, I actually miss it. Bought it NIB on ebay a few years back for around $40.
 

ida34

Well-known member
4,120
33
48
Location
Dexter, MI
I got one and it was not working. The relays inside were damaged. This seems to be the problem with most of them. For about $20 I got relays to replace all of them not just the one that looked damaged. It had the relays replaced and it has worked great ever since. That being said, my three lever is in the tool box just in case.
 

Jones

Well-known member
2,237
83
48
Location
Sacramento, California
Chuck,
Did you happen to write the relay numbers down; or are they marked? I've got one that's acting up and was going to tear into it to see if it's fixable.
 

ida34

Well-known member
4,120
33
48
Location
Dexter, MI
Jones said:
Chuck,
Did you happen to write the relay numbers down; or are they marked? I've got one that's acting up and was going to tear into it to see if it's fixable.
I will try to find the number. I may have posted it previously so I will do a search to find out. I originally found the number by looking at the top of the relay. Very small stuff and very difficult for a non electronics person to change out. I will get back to you.
 

ida34

Well-known member
4,120
33
48
Location
Dexter, MI
I could not find the number. They are clearly marked as long as all of them are not fried. There are four of them if I remember correctly and they should be surface mount with 6 legs. LM57?? but I may be wrong on the partial number.
 

m-35tom

Well-known member
Supporting Vendor
3,021
221
63
Location
eldersburg maryland
high side solid state relays, 10 pins. 2 different number solid state switches are used, made by ST micro part and available from digikey. 2 VN610 $5.47 and 4 VND600 $4.69
VN610 rated 45 amps and VND600 rated 25 amps each channel. basic soldering skill to replace, (tip: cut all legs, remove with tweezers, heat and remove body. this way avoids damage to board) static sensitive, use proper precautions.
 

saddamsnightmare

Well-known member
3,618
80
48
Location
Abilene, Texas
JANUARY 11TH, 2008.

I MUST CONCUR with AlphaDeltaRomeo above, if any of you guys have a NSN-5930-01-491-9893 TACOM blackout switch that works and you just can't live with it, I'll swap you a NOS 3 lever any day of the week. I've had M422A1's with the 3 lever (What a waste of weight on a light jeep),M715's,M135/211's, M37's and my 1971 Kaiser Jeep M35A2 Wo/W "Saddam's Nightmare", and the M35A2's is very tought to work one or two handed because of where it's situated and what's around it.
If you want to see a very logical blackout switch design for 24VDC operation, take a look at the Mercedes S404.114 Unimogs built for the Swiss in the early 1960's. One 5 position switch with center lockout for the blackout/road lights (blackout side not used in this model-only "Off, Parking, Driving (S0,S1,S2)) used- Stoplights always on on the "Tage" or center position. And 1 pull switch under the steering wheel for the blackout driving/tail lights. You can work either of these with two fingers or less- German engineering at it's best. I think TACOM came up with a good modern design, which did the best job with the diverse wiring systems and dashboard layouts on our old equipment.
Line ADR says, you can send it to me for old Christmas, Serbian Christmas, New Christmas, Chinese NEw Year or any other day of the year you want to celebrate- and I'll thank you profusely.

Just My 2 cents in Confederate Money (as I'm in Texas),

Sincerely,

Kyle F. McGrogan

1963 Mercedes Benz S404.114 Unimog (Swiss)
1971 Kaiser Jeep M35A2 Wo/W "Saddam's Nightmare" Vietnam and Desert Storm Veteran Truck
 

Boatcarpenter

New member
1,877
17
0
Location
Marlborough, NH
Having been born and raised pre touch-screen, led light, mouse click, voice activated, keypad actuated, digitized, computer operated, voiped, text messaged, remote controlled and so on and so on, I love my mechanical three lever switch :D
 

dma251

Member
648
15
18
Location
Arlington, Washington
I've had both styles myself too. I prefer modern military vehicles - so naturally I like the push button switch better.

The headlight switch (3-lever) in my Deuce acted up when I first got it, though. I bought another one off Ebay and took apart the old one. What a complicated Rube-Goldbergian contraption it is on the inside.... Seems like a lot of areas that corrosion and wear can take place.

By the way - this kind of reminds me of how people reacted when fuel injection started becoming commonplace in the 80's. All the hotrod guys freaked out and swore they hated it and it was the end of hotrodding new cars...

I guess all those guys are tinkering with their little-rascal scooters now instead of cars, but all the people that were willing to ADAPT to progress (whether it had obvious benefits or not) are happily upgrading injectors and remapping their ECMs...

Kinda like that gol-derned horseless-carriage contraption... What a fad that'll be....
 

saddamsnightmare

Well-known member
3,618
80
48
Location
Abilene, Texas
February 5th, 2008.

You DO KNOW that the Ohio River Towboats use a tiller lever or joystick to steer them and their tows, and I suspect it may not be too far in the future when automobiles and trucks may be controlled with the old eyeball direction system like the weapons on the UH-1's, or possibly electronic implants that let you interface with your car, computer, house and whatever else. The Edsel used a push putton control on the steering wheel for the transmission (and WE all know what happened to the Edsel), but the tendancy historically has been to replace less sophisticated equipment with more sophisticated equipment. A steam locomotive will move a train, just not as well as a modern diesel electric, and it takes more training to operate the steam locomotive. I can operate 1840-1940's belt driven machine tools fine, but I can't be bothered with CDC machines, whereas my college age wizards can run anything computerized and almost nothing mechanical, but then they're all Bill Gate's offspring.
To borrow a saying from Casablanca," I can see the viewpoint of the hounds, as well as the fox's". Our trucks are stone age in technology (almost) but I bet they can handle battle damage and repairs better then some of their newer offspring. In any case, I'll still trade a 3 lever new for a new TACOM.

Regards,

Kyle F. McGrogan
1963 Mercedes Benz S404.114 Unimog (Swiss)
1971 Kaiser Jeep M35A2 Wo/W "Saddam's Nightmare" Desert Storm and Vietnam Deuce VEteran Truck.
 
Top
AdBlock Detected

We get it, advertisements are annoying!

Sure, ad-blocking software does a great job at blocking ads, but it also blocks useful features of our website like our supporting vendors. Their ads help keep Steel Soldiers going. Please consider disabling your ad blockers for the site. Thanks!

I've Disabled AdBlock
No Thanks