Train horn button wiring help

[Landonkw]

I have a question for you wiring experts. I’m wanting to use this button as the horn button for my train horns and I was wanting to put it in this spot where the charging port was(wires sticking out). Can I use the wires that went to the charging port to power the horn button? If so how would I go about wiring up to the button with the solenoid wire being thrown into the mix? Last picture is a pic of the wiring diagram for the button

[Dresari702]

Can you open the attached PDF ?     I was mocking up a wiring diagram for someone else....so I just modified it for your scheme.    I made some assumptions about the solenoid wiring, but the wiring to the pushbutton should work.    Basic answer is Yes, I believe you could use the existing USB wiring to power the coil on the horn solenoid.

TRAIN HORN PAGE.pdf

[Landonkw]

Yes I got it to load. Thank you that’s very helpful. Let me ask you this, I have the positive and negative from the old usb hooked up to the button now and the LED light for the button isn’t coming on. Does the wire from the solenoid need to be hooked up to it before the light will come on? 

[Landonkw]

1 hour ago, Dresari702 said:

Can you open the attached PDF ?     I was mocking up a wiring diagram for someone else....so I just modified it for your scheme.    I made some assumptions about the solenoid wiring, but the wiring to the pushbutton should work.    Basic answer is Yes, I believe you could use the existing USB wiring to power the coil on the horn solenoid.

TRAIN HORN PAGE.pdf 25.56 kB · 1 download

 

[Dresari702]

1 hour ago, Landonkw said:

Yes I got it to load. Thank you that’s very helpful. Let me ask you this, I have the positive and negative from the old usb hooked up to the button now and the LED light for the button isn’t coming on. Does the wire from the solenoid need to be hooked up to it before the light will come on? 

 

       I would have thought the button would illuminate when you connect wires as shown, and pushed the button.    Should not matter if you wired PIN 1 into the horn.

 

First:   if you have a Volt Meter....connect probes to the old USB port wires and make sure you have 12 Volts there to begin with.   It might only switch on when the truck's ignition is on.    I don't recall if it is constantly powered, or switched with the ignition key.

 

      From the diagram above it looks like the LED only comes on when there's power across PIN 1 and PIN 3     (+12V at PIN 1.   -12V at PIN 3).    You could try to test it by moving Red Wire to PIN 1,  and Black Wire to PIN 3.   See what happens...?

[Landonkw]

1 hour ago, Dresari702 said:

 

       I would have thought the button would illuminate when you connect wires as shown, and pushed the button.    Should not matter if you wired PIN 1 into the horn.

 

First:   if you have a Volt Meter....connect probes to the old USB port wires and make sure you have 12 Volts there to begin with.   It might only switch on when the truck's ignition is on.    I don't recall if it is constantly powered, or switched with the ignition key.

 

      From the diagram above it looks like the LED only comes on when there's power across PIN 1 and PIN 3     (+12V at PIN 1.   -12V at PIN 3).    You could try to test it by moving Red Wire to PIN 1,  and Black Wire to PIN 3.   See what happens...?

I tried it that way on the first button I bought and it fried it 

[Dresari702]

23 minutes ago, Landonkw said:

I tried it that way on the first button I bought and it fried it 

      That's....interesting.   I can see how you'd pop a fuse if, say, you connected the 2x wires to pins' 1 & 2.  That'd be a short circuit.   But deep frying a switch based on what's discussed above surprises me.   I'm stumped at that.   Hopefully someone else reads the above discussion and maybe answers with some insight?   In the meantime I'll think about it and see if I missed something.    Sorry for the continued difficulties.

[Landonkw]

On 3/15/2022 at 2:35 PM, Dresari702 said:

      That's....interesting.   I can see how you'd pop a fuse if, say, you connected the 2x wires to pins' 1 & 2.  That'd be a short circuit.   But deep frying a switch based on what's discussed above surprises me.   I'm stumped at that.   Hopefully someone else reads the above discussion and maybe answers with some insight?   In the meantime I'll think about it and see if I missed something.    Sorry for the continued difficulties.

 Yeah I’m not sure what to do at this point. Guess I’ll scrap the idea of using this button and find a different one