Scenario: On my old military Land Rover I have a three-way pole switch which turns the pilot and tail lights on (top position), or also turns on the headlights (bottom position).
- Top: Pilot and rear lights ON
- Middle: All lights OFF (unconnected terminal)
- Bottom: Side and rear lights + Headlights ON
The challenge is:
- to use as little relays as possible (ideally only one) due to space constraints. My fuse/relay-box is already too full.
- headlights must be powered through a relay (currently they are wired through the switch, which is a known problem on older Land Rovers (burnt out switches, poor lighting)
- pilot lights may be powered directly (i think -- they take 8 watts max alltogether)
- I have a tried a Schottky diode as it seemed to provide a solution for having power flow in only one way, but when I'm measuring I detect that voltage does leak in the wrong direction (???). I use the SB550 5A 50V Schottky diode and placed it between the terminals on the switch itself (not as depicted below after the relay, but I don't think that matters).
So, this is what I got so far (the connector on the image leads to the lights):
I am not that experienced with circuits, I hope someone here can review my schematics and provide some ideas or feedback on how to improve on it.
Soo many thanks!