Auxiliary Switch Panel

 

GM Part Number: Front panel tray - xx xx xx

The external cassette player location was a perfect spot to add the required auxiliary device control switches, as well as general electrical interface components. The thought of keeping the cassette player for those times when you are in some backwoods gas station 1000 miles from home and all they have are those 99 cent cassettes with the oddest music ever recorded was not great enough to overcome the benefits of replacing it with a much more handy switch panel. The world needs more switches. The player was removed and replaced with a GM storage insert that comes in place of the cassette player on some models of GM pickup.

The back half of the storage holder was cut off to allow for wiring access. A faceplate was created from 1/16 sheet ABS (again from Tap Plastics) to conform to the size of the opening in the center console. This faceplate had the appropriate holes cut into it, the switches and connectors added, and then bolted and silicon glued to the front of the storage holder. A bit of grinding to the back side of the center panel faceplate was required to make room for the added thickness of the faceplate, but only near the top, and only a little bit of shaving was required.

The wiring out the back of the front plate terminates into 3 cables. An RCA video I/O cable, the TM-D700 mic input cable, and a Molex 12 pin plug. The Molex plug was used to help keep the wiring as modular as possible due to the number of lines being used. A wiring harness then plugs into the Molex 12 pin connector and runs to the secondary power distribution box under the center console.

The controls of this panel are used to power the relays for the rack mounted lights (3 switches &endash; forward, forward wide, and rear lights) as well as to power the 6 inch NTSC display and power/select a video source (front video camera, rear video camera, AUX video input). The other two ports are the mic connector and the video I/O RCA connector. When the display is powered, this power also gets switched to the front/rear cameras depending on the camera select switch. When one of the two cameras is powered, the video plug becomes an output to allow recording of camera video. When the video select three-way switch is in the center position, both cameras are turned off and video can be sent into the front panel to be displayed on the 6 inch NTSC display. When one of the cameras is turned on, the camera video signal is passed through the system effectively turning the video panel RCA plug into a video output.

email:SubRider

10/16/01