Hey guys, I bought a universal seat heater kit but it didn't come with instructions. I have installed the heaters and switches. But I'm having issues with wiring them up. There are 3 wires, black, red, and yellow.
Currently,
The switches are illuminated and stay lit all the time, while the heaters themselves only work when ignition on. This is the switch back lite, the led indicators for hi,mid,low work correctly.
How do I wire them correctly? Do both the the red and yellow wires go to ignition hot source? Or does one of them get wired to a Guage illumination wire?
Something is draining the battery, and I have a feeling it's because the seat heater switches are constantly illuminated.
The Black wire should go to a solid chassis ground point or Battery negative.
The Red wire should go to a +12V supply that is on when the key is in the ON position. Don't want to kill the battery by leaving the heated seats on when the key is OFF. You could connect the Red to a source that is on when the car is ON and when in the ACC position but that way the heated seat could be ON and drawing current with the engine off. Typical seat heaters only draw 5 amps ( each seat ).
The Yellow wire is for switch illumination and can go to the same source as the Red wire or if you want to control the brightness it can go to the +12V side of an instrument panel light. Not sure on an older vette, but on newer cars the instrument panel illumination brightness is controlled via the (-) source, not the positive. You could test the Headlight switch to see if the illumination rheostat output wire is (+) voltage that adjusts down when dimmed. If so, connect the Yellow wire there.
Being as the heated seat control illumination is LED, it might not dim at the same rate as the cars incandescent dash lights. I usually join the Red and Yellow. That way the switches LED will be ON at full brightness whenever the car is. The switch is typically mounted low in the dash / console area or the seat itself, so the brightness won't annoy / distract the driver. If it is too bright, you could add an in-line resistor to dim it a bit.
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Soldering is fun!