Help with LED Toggle wired to Apex breakout box

[Mike Arnold]

I'm working on my control panel and looking for some guidance on wiring some toggle switches; I'm currently working on the cabinet and will be adding this power strip and some toggle and momentary switches to the top of the cabinet before I add the doors. I've scoured these DIY forums and have found a lot of information on SPST toggle switches but not much on LED toggle switches; what I have found is custom made LED button boxes that someone is selling.

I've created a breakout box with headphone jacks for my float switches and such, now I would like to add some toggle and momentary switches (with a little pizzaz)

I'm wondering if I can add power for the led's on these toggle witches with a 12v power adapter; if I add this power, will it damage the Apex controller in anyway?

If someone is willing, could you let me know how to wire these up; I know that some of you are making money selling these, so I'm willing to pay for the plans or instructions. I just want to build them myself.

Thanks
Mike

 

[Ranjib]

I'm working on my control panel and looking for some guidance on wiring some toggle switches; I'm currently working on the cabinet and will be adding this power strip and some toggle and momentary switches to the top of the cabinet before I add the doors. I've scoured these DIY forums and have found a lot of information on SPST toggle switches but not much on LED toggle switches; what I have found is custom made LED button boxes that someone is selling.

I've created a breakout box with headphone jacks for my float switches and such, now I would like to add some toggle and momentary switches (with a little pizzaz)

I'm wondering if I can add power for the led's on these toggle witches with a 12v power adapter; if I add this power, will it damage the Apex controller in anyway?

If someone is willing, could you let me know how to wire these up; I know that some of you are making money selling these, so I'm willing to pay for the plans or instructions. I just want to build them myself.

Thanks
Mike

I have to read about the power bits, but other than that wiring is same as float switch. Get latching spst switch. Momentary switches are the ones that you have to keep pressed

 

[Mike Arnold]

I have to read about the power bits, but other than that wiring is same as float switch. Get latching spst switch. Momentary switches are the ones that you have to keep pressed

Looks like this power supply will provide the needed power for the led

 

[Mike Arnold]

It looks like after doing some more research that, I will need to use DPST switch and supply power to one set of poles for the illumination of the switch; from what I can tell, the really cool halo switches aren't DPST and I haven't found any DPST LED switches that I like; so, I guess I'll just go ahead and use some SPST toggle switches.

 

[Mike Arnold]

UPDATE : I figured out how to wire the Halo latchless LED push buttons; however, I decided to use the latching type instead. I'll have to figure out how to wire them too, but shouldn't be too difficult.

Just finished construction of my controller cabinet and ready to paint.

 

[Mike Arnold]

Unfortunately when I was mounting the controller, I pulled the orange mounting bracket off and the plastic clips fell off inside the controller housing; does anyone know now to open the housing of the ApexEL and fix the clips?

 

[Mike Arnold]

update: the cabinet is finished and equipment is mounted; just finishing up some wiring and cable management.

buttons include one red kill switch, 1 blue feed and 1 blue water change

note: the kindle fire is configured as control pannel and a streaming video camera. the back facing camera will be streaming the tank life

 

[LotsOreefs]

Would you be willing to share a part list or tell us more about how to wire the halo switches? Really cool idea by the way!

 

[Mike Arnold]

Would you be willing to share a part list or tell us more about how to wire the halo switches? Really cool idea by the way!

Yes, absolutely; I’ll put together a descriptive list with some pictures. It’s late right now, so I’ll try to get something posted tomorrow

Here’s a link to my project photos https://photos.app.goo.gl/1y3PEPnVwKMHdsBH9

 

[Mike Arnold]

Yes, absolutely; I’ll put together a descriptive list with some pictures. It’s late right now, so I’ll try to get something posted tomorrow

Here’s a link to my project photos https://photos.app.goo.gl/1y3PEPnVwKMHdsBH9

 

[Bayareareefer18]

Looks great

update: the cabinet is finished and equipment is mounted; just finishing up some wiring and cable management.

buttons include one red kill switch, 1 blue feed and 1 blue water change

note: the kindle fire is configured as control pannel and a streaming video camera. the back facing camera will be streaming the tank life

 

[Mike Arnold]

Sorry for the double quote; I started to update this thread and didn't realize that Apple updated their picture format to .heic and R2R doesn't recognize that format so I had to convert them.

disclaimer: I've never created a tutorial or any other step-by-step documentation before; also, I'm not an electrician and everything that I know about this subject, I learned from google and youtube so this is going to be a very rudimentary outline of the steps that I took to configure these LED halo buttons. I wanted to post this here in an effort to help someone else out and save hours of frustration; because it took me forever to figure out such a simple little thing like adding power to LED buttons that offers little to no value what-so-ever to the functioning of my control center

NOTE: This is for those hands on DIY'rs. For those of you that like the look and functionality of LED buttons, there's a guy on the Facebook #AskBRSTV group named Harry Singer that makes some awesome button boxes that wire directly to a Neptune Apex breakout box; it is not my intention to take away from the service he or any others selling these boxes provide.

Here's a photo of the basic physical configuration

The power to light up the LED is provided by a 12V 1.5A Power Supply Adapter. The power is not applied to the switch (NO/NC/C) terminals so, power will not be introduced to the BOB connections. (this was my main concern) The latching LED halo switch has 5 terminals: the Red + and Black - connect to the power adapter. The NC , NO, and C terminals switch the state of the button. I didn't know any better at the time, so I purchased a power adapter from Amazon, but I could have used any of the dozen or so that I have laying around at home that are 12V 1.5A. So, the red and black wires power up the LED; the green, blue, and yellow wires are used to switch the state of the button: Green = Com, Blue= Normally Open, Yellow = Normally Closed. I used NO for my setup; all switches are open. I push the button and the switch is closed (if KILL Closed then Off) Here's some basic info on the NO, NC, C Terminals

There are some good tutorials out there on configuring the breakout box here's one by FishOfHex

For my setup, I just combined the red wires of the 3 switches and connected them to the Positive + terminal black wires on the three switches to the Negative - terminal then soldered and shrink wrapped the connections. Each button NO/C connections are soldered and shrink wrapped and plugged into the breakout box via 1/8" 3.5 mm mono cable

Here's the finished product

I hope this helps

 

[grey]

Hey,
I’m looking to do a quite similar project myself might be a dumb question but did you need to use a separate power adaptor for each switch or did you use a single one?
ps looks amazing

 

[Mike Arnold]

Hey,
I’m looking to do a quite similar project myself might be a dumb question but did you need to use a separate power adaptor for each switch or did you use a single one?
ps looks amazing

I used one 12v 1.5A power supply; I connected the 3 red wires in a bundle to the +positive terminal and the three black wires in a bundle to the -terminal. I used solder and shrink wrap on each bundle. I hope this helps. You can see the bundle of black and red wires connected to the 2 terminals in the pick of the back of the cabinet. You may need to zoom into the circled area

 

[grey]

Hey,
Very helpful Thank you !

 

[gng007]

Hi Mike

thanks for your project. I have tried to replicate your LED switches via a Avast Breakout box. I am using the same switches you have. What I have found it connecting the 12v power to the red and black wires the LED is permanently on and pressing the button switch on and off doesn’t change and the LED is permanently on.
is this something you have experienced?

 

[Mike Arnold]

Hi Mike

thanks for your project. I have tried to replicate your LED switches via a Avast Breakout box. I am using the same switches you have. What I have found it connecting the 12v power to the red and black wires the LED is permanently on and pressing the button switch on and off doesn’t change and the LED is permanently on.
is this something you have experienced?

Yes, unfortunately the LED’s are set to always on. I couldn’t find any switches that allowed me to power the LED on/off without adding power to the BOB. The only function of the LED in my configuration, is to add a little bling to the cabinet