Bob P. -- Ignition Switch Woes

[davids2toys]

Sorry Patrick,
I am not the electrical guru that you are. I need you to dumb this down a bit. 12v light? Are we still talking about a test light, or something like this
https://www.grainger.com/product/20C...7A1P:20501231?
My small red wire goes directly from the MSD box to the IGN terminal of my ignition switch. there is also a green wire going to the same IGN terminal of my switch. Is that what you are maybe thinking goes to the front of the car?
I have never stripped the wire in the middle of a run. Is there a proper way to do this? When I am done testing, do you just wrap the stripped part with electrical tape or cut it and butt splice it?

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by davids2toys

. 12v light? Are we still talking about a test light, or something like this...

That light would be perfect. And the way you strip a wire in mid-span is with a razor blade. You just lightly shave the plastic insulation off just like you were whittling a stick with a pocket knife. You should practice first on a regular piece of insulated wire while you sit in front of the TV. Just take your razor and slice about an inch of plastic insulation off without sticking the razor in so hard that you break one of the copper strands. If you practice a couple of times you'll end up saying "Dang, this is actually pretty easy." And then when the tests are over, you just wrap black electrician's tape around the spot that you shave off. Nothing to it.

EDIT -- And you shave the plastic off all around the wire so there's a nice 360 degree gap of plastic insulation. That makes it really easy to wrap your mid-span tap around that gap for a nice connection. And if for some reason you wanted to make it permanent (which you don't for this test) then you would just melt a little solder on it and you've got a nice, permanent soldered tap.

[Gaz64]

David,

I have a length of wire with a pin soldered to it, that I lightly pierce a wire in question, then tape the outside secure. The pin goes in near parallel to the conductor. The wire is now accessible for testing with a testlamp or multimeter. The wire only has a pin hole that is easily taped afterwards.

A testlamp can be a 3w bulb or LED, depending on what we are looking for.

Sometimes I also like to use a relay, as either a operated latch, or set to drop out if loss occurs, depends on what we are looking for.