Cool Hidden Switch panel thing Options

[korban]

I decided I wanted some switches available in my car to do... well stuff. I thought about all kinds of locations, glove box, dash, under the headunit. Then I remembered the coin box in the center console. This seemed like a great place to put some switches.



First I needed to make a little panel to sit inside to mount the switches on. So I made a template from cardboard, and then used the template to cut a piece from perspex (Any metal or plastic would do). I put some measurements on a piece of paper next to the final panel. I'd make it a little bigger and file/sand to fit if you want a perfect fit, mine was almost perfect, but I had to glue it anyways.



I bought 4 switches, a blue 'duckbill' type, 12mm mounting holes. They look pretty good all mounted up.



And then placed them into the coin box for a test fit.



Drilled a hole for wires and threaded the wires through.



Next I needed to wireup all the switches, 4 wires to each center pole, power to one side, and ground to the other. All these I put into a 6 way connector, with heatshrink and some plastic tubing.



After connecting 6 wires, I then needed power and ground rails to join them all together.



I then needed a hole in the center console for the plug to fit through. One side has a clip to hold the unit in, so I made a hole on the other side.



The all I had to do was put it in placed, connect to the other wiring that I ran to my Link programmable ECU and viola!



Now I can control stuff, I have launch control on one switch, datalogging on another, I've set ACIS on another one to try turning it on earlier. Not sure what i'll use the fourth one for, maybe a speed limit. Now of course this doesn't seem very useful for people without an aftermarket ECU but you could use them to turn your amp on/off, aerial up down. I want to add a switch elsewhere for garage door remote even.

I'll try and get some night photos as well as they light up when on.

[cardshark525]

The very top picture in the thread is a picture of the ash tray, and the inserts on the sides are cigarette holders. The actual coin box looks neat. In my car the only place to store coins really besides the opening in front of the stick, is right where you reach to open the center console. Theres two little slots where you can fit about 6 coins.