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Auxiliary switches to work full time

Houston

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Does anyone know how to make some Auxiliary switches to work full time? I have some flashing lights and a couple flood lights I would like to work without the Bronco on.

Thank you…

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Brian_B

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Wire a switch straight to the battery?

I think I remember someone around here doing that with the OEM Upfitter switches, and it took some wiring harness re-jiggering. It would have been 25x easier to just use a non-upfitter switch and go straight to the battery (knowing you will kill your battery one day and we will all laugh at you and say we told you so), or play it safer and go to an auxillary power point (either straight or via a switch/relay) (the 12V power points have a Forscan-adjustable timeout and low battery protection)
 

CalvinT

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It's possible, but you have to modify the wiring harness near the upfitter switches. It would be easier and more reliable to just run new wires.

I have a few lights I want to use when my Bronco isn't running. I'm just going to run new wires and install the needed switches.

It would be a good idea to run your proposed lights off a controller that provides a low voltage disconnect. That's what I'm going to do.
 

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Wire a switch straight to the battery?

I think I remember someone around here doing that with the OEM Upfitter switches, and it took some wiring harness re-jiggering. It would have been 25x easier to just use a non-upfitter switch and go straight to the battery (knowing you will kill your battery one day and we will all laugh at you and say we told you so), or play it safer and go to an auxillary power point (either straight or via a switch/relay) (the 12V power points have a Forscan-adjustable timeout and low battery protection)
Thank you Brian. I think I will just put a small micro-switch under the dash somewhere, and do it from there. I think my old Excursion had a way to just flip the fuse in another direction and my uplifted we on 24/7. Oh well, I will get over the Aux. Switches letting me drain the battery. lol
 

Brian_B

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Yeah not as simple as flipping a fuse I don’t think
 

DeathValleyBob

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It would be nice if Ford did their Upfitters the way copycat Jeep did it. Later Jeeps provide a programmable option for each switch’s mode including a full time mode and a pulse mode. The bad news on Jeep is the hard to reach dashboard position and there’s only 4 of them. Ford got theirs almost right.

There were several posts on this forum in the early days on how to permanently power Upfitters. It involves breaking into a harness-there are several places to do this. The Bronco upfitters are divided into 2 banks so you can make one bank full time power and one ignition switch dependent.

Alert: the Upfitters’ just apply power to a relay, the relay is doing the heavy lifting. If you do the permanent mod to, say, to a power outlet, and leave the switch on full time, that relay is going to be powered in whether or not you are actually using the outlet. This will add to the already sizable permanent parasitic battery drain-and will flatten your battery even quicker than normal ‘ignition off’ conditions.
 

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OracleLights

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If you're looking for a way to control accessories with the vehicle completely off, our TRIGGER controller can actually do that depending on how it's installed.

The TRIGGER's yellow "power on" wire can be connected either to an ignition-switched source (recommended for most daily drivers) or directly to the battery. When wired directly to the battery, the controller remains powered so you can activate your accessories from the RF remote or Bluetooth app even with the Bronco turned off. Keep in mind there is a small parasitic draw in this configuration, so it's something to consider depending on how often the vehicle sits. If it's wired to switched ignition, it will only operate when the vehicle is on.
 

Notmattwong

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Just installed the ford 4-switch kit and I’m pretty sure the switches stay on even after ignition off. I haven’t wired any lights to it yet but the switches stay illuminated with power off. They may have a timer to cut off but I haven’t tested it yet. My base bronco didn’t have them so it was the cleanest factory looking option.
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