Amazon switch panels

Austen2019

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Jan 30, 2024
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Hey guys, so I have a 86 bronco carb and am going to completely rewire the whole truck. I want to use a switch panel like the switch pros but don’t have the money for a switch pros. Was wondering if anyone here has used other cost effective brands that they like. Lmk what you got thanks
 
Honestly, when it comes to wiring you either pay the high price upfront or pay the same price later to piece it together yourself.

The switchpros is priced pretty well considering it does current limiting, its water proof, and has as 8 independent circuits. You don't need fuse boxes, relay holders, or switches and all the wires and connectors to hook that bowl of spaghetti together. If you spend the money for the good versions of those parts (which you should) you end up really close to just paying for the sp.

If you want to do it the hard way, I am a fan of the gep fuse/relay pdm boxes and the eaton bussman boxes. I prefer to use resettable circuit breakers vs fuses for critical circuits.

Wiring/electrical is one of those things that you shouldn't skimp out on.

Sean
 
Agreed with above.
The Amazon ones also don’t have enough amperage per channel in my opinion.
 
I have a aux beam panel. It would frequently loose power to the panel in the dirt and anything powered by the switch would shut off. After numerous trips I finally cleaned and tightened all the contacts and added dielectric grease everywhere I could and it's been solid since.

I wouldn't go the cheap route if I were powering anything other than BS accessories.
 
Rough Country and Trigger both make great switch thingies (whatever you want to call the genre of pre made switch panels). I used to work for an offroad shop in Hesperia and we used the Trigger system ALL the time with customers and had nothing but positive experiences. Not sure how either compare to Switch Pros when it comes to the financial OR quality side of things, but the quality to dollar ratio was pretty damn good. Just throwing out a couple other options for ya 🤙

I'd personally go with either the Rough Country or Trigger systems in my own personal vehicles too if I could, but not enough real estate anywhere and I'm running oem dashes too, not a fabbed dash. Plus I don't mind doing my own wiring. AND I'm more of a toggle switch kinda guy at the end of the day too.
 
Switch pros is definitely the way to go from the sounds of your project. They aren’t perfect but you won’t regret it. You need to figure out exactly what you’ll be running off of if. I highly recommend the force 12 unit over the 9100. Try to meet or at least talk to someone on the phone about it before buying anything.
 
Switch pros is definitely the way to go from the sounds of your project. They aren’t perfect but you won’t regret it. You need to figure out exactly what you’ll be running off of if. I highly recommend the force 12 unit over the 9100. Try to meet or at least talk to someone on the phone about it before buying anything.
Yeah, if the 12 was out when I bought my 9100 I would have gotten the extra circuits.

The price really ends up being a drop in the bucket compared to all the other stuff you need for a wire job. Hell, the wire itself if you use good automotive or marine wire will cost you a nice chunk of change.

On these kind of vehicles where they are offroad, high vibration, and far from help if you have an issue, its just not worth it (to me) to try and "save" a couple hundred bucks when the risk is something failing or a fire.

Sean
 
Lots of good info posted. I’m doing this on my truck as we speak, I’m using a switchpros rcr 12 for pretty much everything accessory and a 96 way gep box to hold the stock PCM and fuel pump relays etc.

A switchpros is just a PDM, power distribution module. There are a lot of PDMs available but for the money I think switchpros is pretty solid.

When you want to go a cheaper route, you can build your own using a blank fuse box. You could go on eBay and buy a pre wired box with terminals etc. Thing with those is they’re usually made like shit, horrible terminal crimps and the bus bars/terminals doing weird shit under high loads.

If you did go the “cheaper route” and build your own a quality bussman or gep box would be ideal. Gep is a blank box, busman has different models and different bus styles for like relay side, fuse side etc. Gep boxes handle higher loads better than busman with the bus bars built in. Gep boxes use tanged terminals along with a tanged box, opposed to the busman having the terminals built into the box, but tangless terminals so if you break that terminal retainer in the box, that position is now useless. Each style has gives and takes.

But honestly after everything I typed, the price and time to me honestly isn’t worth it. The amount of tools you would need to do what I said isn’t even worth it to the average person. I’d rather buy a switchpros, a bag of 14g-step up/down splices and some heat shrink and just be pretty much done with it. The time and money involved to do a fuse box style correctly, maybe just use it to save for a switch pros.
 
I agree with all the above. "Cool shit ain't cheap; and cheap shit ain't cool"

Now if you're just adding lights to truck you don't "need" the Switch Pros.

If you do get one...get the one with the highest amp rating per circuit.
 
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Thank you everyone. I’m no money bags and am on a major budget and know how legit the switch pros one is but I will look into the other two brands if I’m not confident in them I will probably go the old school route with push circuit and toggle switches. Starting a build thread soon as well.
 
i have used 2 of the amazon units, 1 in a container to run lights, and 2 for our CD trailer to run lights. They are fine for what they are, but they arent as nice as my spod. you cant turn lights on without the ignition being on with the amazon units... but for a cheap unit they are okay. Not sure how they would hold up to abuse.
 
Actually, after mentioning Trigger, I've been looking into them again for my current build. I forgot the switch panel (which is also bluetooth wireless btw, so no wires through the firewall, pretty freaking cool) is the same size as a single din cubby opening so I might actually have the real estate for my application after all. But I'm also using it on a dd / work truck / weekend warrior build.

For a dedicated toy or race truck I'd 100% recommend Switch Pro's.

At the end of the day, you get what you pay for. Consider your application and go from there. I personally don't think I'd ever go the Amazon / ebay route when it came to wiring 😬
 
I have the aux beam in my truck and its ok. it does the job. I bout it when they first came out and you could get a 6 button one for 65 bucks. if I had to do it again I would go with a switch pro or something better just for the options. the trigger is cool. I actually got my father in-law one about 5 years ago and he has still not mounted it.
 
Ya I’m just trying to simplify my set up so that my wife can drive it if she wants not trying to race it just do Mojave trail and go watch the races. I actually like the painless set up the most so far
 
On another forum I never go on cough TW cough there’s a long on going thread about the auxbeam units. The way back beginning some guys had quality control issues and seems the newer ones have been pretty good with decent custom service. I picked up one for just lighting and maybe a horn, still need to install it all. I could see upgrading down line if any issues arise or I get to the point of now what 😆 .
 
I appreciate all of the kind words and all of you guys recommending our product. We manufacture and assemble everything in house, I don't know of any other companies who are doing this. There is so much nuance to these systems and making sure the power wire is adequate based on how much power the systems can handle. There are many in this space that are a fire hazard and cheaper units do not typically have a Bluetooth app for programming. -Brennan
 
I got an aux beam for my sequoia lights and not importnant accessories BUT for my ford prerunner I spent the money on legit switch pros. I don't want anything to fail on that thing so buy once cry once there.
 
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