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Following a night-time Landy/gatepost interface by Mrs R, I'm fitting a worklamp to the rear of the roof to give additional illumination.

I am going to intercept the wire from the gearbox reversing switch to the reversing lamp and use this to trigger a relay. I have found a spare red "light switch controlled" connector behind the dash and this will supply the heavy-duty circuit, switched by the relay and feeding the 55w worklamp. This will be fused, by the way.

This will give me an additional powerful reversing light that can't be left on accidentally and only operates when the sidelights are on.

With me so far?

Now I want an additional illuminated switch near the rear door, which will enable me to switch on the worklamp independently of gearbox and lights.

How do I wire the switch? Please help my mimd to stop going round and round trying to work it out. As you'll have guessed I'm no auto-electrician. Presumably it needs to be wired so that the switch also triggers the relay, right?

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Simplest way: Take a feed from the fused wire that is supplying the main power to the relay, put this through a switch and on to the same terminal on the relay as the switching wire from the reversing light.

But note that will make the reversing light live when you put the additional switch on as well as the work light. If you don't like that then you could wire a second relay in parallel with the first - same main power feed could be split to second relay and also taken through a switch as above to switch the second relay.

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I'd look at where the feed is coming from - if it's only designed to feed the sidelights (25W total) it may not like an extra 55W load. My choice would be find a spare slot in the fusebox and use a direct feed from the battery if possible. Might mean an extra relay is needed to give you the right combination of reversing / sidelights / swtch activation.

Does the reverse light switch ground the feed when engaged? And does the MOT man like 55W reversing lights?

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IIRC the reverse is a permanent +VE with switch by -VE.

I'm sure Western will be along in a mo to advise - Oi Western !!! Over here M8...............

Adam

ok,ok, I'm here. :unsure:

I used the purple permanent live feed to power my rear work light, you should find it behind the right rear light cover panel, use it to feed the relay and connect the other wires to the switch/light

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IIRC the reverse is a permanent +VE with switch by -VE.

That's be the way everyone else does it, but being Landrover, the +ve is switched. :rolleyes:

Mark90 has the answer for you, a second relay wired parallel with the first, using your switch to supply independant power, will give you a work light that doesn't turn on the reverse lights too.

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Well I got it sorted and it worked fine until I introduced another switched feed from a live in the rear light box. This blew the fuse I had installed on the heavy feed to the worklamp. Dave from Canada has already predicted this and reckons I'll need a diode to prevent current from reverse feeding and making the dashboard live. Seems that (what I didn't know) in the "off" position the sidelight switch becomes an earth.

Short of rewiring the switch in the rear light box and taking a double cable right forward to the relay, a diode is the answer.

Or how about a 3-way switch?

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