I wired up the engine start switch tonight. The internal light illuminates when the switch is active. Pressing it results in a satisfying clunk of the starter contactor (the starter wire is disconnected of course).
Robert at pilotlights.net has started carrying new 7A dimmers. I ordered a couple to see if they’ll work to control the seat heaters. The seats draw about 2.7A each, and I’ll have one of these per seat, so that gives plenty of margin. I ran these at 2.7A for awhile, and the heat sink only gets 6-7ºF above ambient.
I pulled out my seats and hooked up the dimmers (bypassing that huge bundle of wire, connectors, relay, and switch in the lower right that come with the seats). The dimmers work beautifully with the seats. The voltage varies linearly with the knob position. I had a little scare when the current through the seat bottom suddenly dropped to almost zero (~10mA). I checked the dimmer and voltage at the seat, and everything looked good. After a few minutes of head scratching, the current suddenly jumped back to the original value. Apparently, the seat heaters have thermistors built into them to prevent over-heating.
