AMP Powerstep and possible remote operation if I can find a reverse ground signal

[Timmy]

Here's my quick right-up for anyone that has AMP powersteps and wants to do this when you take off the doors.

(I'm borrowing pics from all over the Internet so I don't have to go back out and take pics, please forgive me...)

Total install time after you have the parts is maybe 15 minutes.

Parts/tools required:
1) Electrical Relay for each footwell from auto parts store. Can be a 4 prong or 5 prong. At O'Reilly auto parts, they actually had a nice little packaged kit for $12 that included a 4 prong relay plus a by-pass switch, plus a number of different wires with the connectors on them already that slide on to the posts of the relay, have an end to attach to ground post, etc. (Blazer International - Relay Wiring Kit Part # MM510)


2) If you didn't purchase the relay kit with wires and instead just a basic relay, then obviously you'll need some electrical wire and a way to attach them to the four posts of the relay. You could solder them on, or buy wires with the connectors on them.


3) Qty 4 or 6 - Wire taps - to tap into the hot of the LED lights, and to connect the grounds together more easily. (Probably the red size is best, the blue's seem a little too big for the gauge wire used.) Depending on how you want to attach the AMP Powerstep door sensor wire, you might want to just tap it, or put a new connector on the end to connect to the posts of the relay (ie, this might be wire taps #5 and #6 if you chose.)


4) Screw driver, ratchet, wire cutter.

Install

1) Remove the AMP Powerstep fuse if you still have it in. You don't need the steps extending on you while your working incase you prematurely ground the wire.

2) Located the LED lights under the footwell.


3) Place a tap into the yellow cable shown in the picture (this is the hot wire leading to the primary LED light.)

4) Mount the relay on the 2nd ground post in the footwell area with the posts of the relay pointing up so they stay out of the way.

5) Place a wire on the 1st ground post in the footwell.


6) Connect the hot wire from the LED light that you tapped to post #86 on your relay (all relays seem to have these numbers on them.)

7) Connect the ground wire on to post #85 of the relay.

8) Connect another wire on to post #30 of the relay and tap this on to the ground wire coming off post #85 (you could run this to the ground post in the footwell as well, but why run two wires, this way it stays nice and clean.)

9) Connect the "door sensor" wire from the AMP Research powerstep to post #87 of the relay. You could just tap the AMP door sensor wire that you already have into the door wire of the Jeep, but that'll probably get goofy when you put the doors on. I decided to simply remove the tap from the Jeep's door wiring for now and put a new end on it to connect to the post of the relay. (AMP includes a nice tap device that is a screw-on, so you can simply un-screw it, leaving the original tap on the main wire but pulling of their wire so you can re-attach it at any later date.)

10) Re-insert the AMP Research fuse.

11) Either push the keyfob unlock button, or turn on the interior dome lights via the switch on the turn signal stalk and see if the steps perform as expected.

Install Notes / Less Learned

- One thing I found helpful was to use a circuit tester at various points to confirm if the relay was working correctly ($9 part at auto store.)

- The el-cheapo relays from the auto store make a goofy vibrating noise when the LED lights dim at the end of their timer. Since a relay has a magnet in it with a spring, my assumption is that the magnet goes a little crazy as the voltage drops to zero. I think I'm going to research for either a solid state relay unit that is silent, or another mechanical relay that can better handle the decreasing voltage during dimming. Fortunately the powersteps still perform just fine as they have a built in delay, so it's not like they sit there and retract/extend/retract/extend until the voltage is at zero.

- I need to find a better way to deal with different wire taps for when the doors are on vs. being off. I could just leave the tap on the LED light like I have, however, that means both steps will extend when any door is open, whereas AMP has it setup so only the steps on the side of the door that is opened will extend/retract. For now though, since it's the start of summer, I don't really care as I plan on trying to leave the doors off for as long as possible

If you try this and have any questions, just ask. Probably not the best write-up in the world, and it was my first, but at least it is enough info to point you in the right direction.

[BigKevSeattle]

Hi Timmy, I have a 2013 Rubicon and had a shop do my install today per your write up, which was very clearly written- thank you. However here is the problem. The dome light coming on does send my steps down, as well as just using the door to drop them. However, the steps will not go back up again unless I manually turn the dome light switch off. Otherwise they stay down and I get a message on my cluster that says "doors ajar" and "vehicle not in park". Once I manually turn the dome light off (which actually stays on unless I do so) everything goes back to normal. When I exit the vehicle the dome light comes on, steps drop, and if I leave for a while the dome light goes off and the steps are still down. Any ideas?

Thank you I advance!

Kevin

[Timmy]

Hi Timmy, I have a 2013 Rubicon and had a shop do my install today per your write up, which was very clearly written- thank you. However here is the problem. The dome light coming on does send my steps down, as well as just using the door to drop them. However, the steps will not go back up again unless I manually turn the dome light switch off. Otherwise they stay down and I get a message on my cluster that says "doors ajar" and "vehicle not in park". Once I manually turn the dome light off (which actually stays on unless I do so) everything goes back to normal. When I exit the vehicle the dome light comes on, steps drop, and if I leave for a while the dome light goes off and the steps are still down. Any ideas?

Thank you I advance!

Kevin

Hmmm, very interesting. In my particular situation, I did not wire my the steps to the door and the dome light at the same time. I only offered a solution that you could do this in conjunction with a manual switch to chose which you'd like to use for your signalling, either the door OR the dome lights, but not both at the same time.

Without seeing your setup firsthand... My gut reaction would be to tell you that you need to disconnect whatever wiring you have hooked up to the door wiring entirely. ONLY hook up to the dome lights. Once you have the system working with JUST the dome lights, then you can come back and try to get fancy by putting in a switch to toggle between the door or the dome for signaling (or neutral "off".)

Nothing about this procedure should cause the dome lights to stay on. The only way the dome lights are being used is to pull a tiny little draw off the hot wire of the dome lights to power the relay switch, which in turn grounds the signaling wire on the opposite poles for the Amp steps.

If you'd like, first disconnect your door wiring from the setup entirely and if still doesn't work as desire. If not snap a pic of your relay and get it over to me which will help me better understand your wiring.

FWIW... I have two relays, one for each step. I did this because I basically was replicating the existing setup where each step was grabbing it's signaling from each door independently. If I was to do it all again, I'd go with just a single relay switch that is then connected up to wiring for both steps at the same time. That way both steps are receiving the exact same grounding signal at the exact same time. Right now, one relay switch is just a HAIR faster than the other, so my steps deploy and retract at slightly different times. Now mind you, when I say a HAIR faster, I am literally talking maybe a 1/4 second at best. It's enough to bug me, but not enough to cause me to go re-wire it using a single relay (which honestly, would take, ohh, um... 10 minutes to toss a wire from say the drivers side to the passenger side?)

Also, another FWIW... I run my system off my dome lights exclusively. I originally thought I would switch back to using the door signaling when I put the doors on but I don't because it's not worth it. The OEM Amp solution allows the steps to deploy/retract independently of each other, and they don't retract when you open up the rear tail gate. In my solution, both steps retract all the time, no matter what door is open, and even if I unlock the vehicle while walking up to it. Big whoop, that tiny difference in how they operate was just not worth alternating between the two different signals based on when I have the doors on and off.

[BigKevSeattle]

Thanks man. Yeah they probably do have it wired to both the dome light and the door switch. I thought that may be the problem. I did verify he wired it like you mentioned to both relays. I'll let you know what happens. Thanks for the quick reply.

Kevin

[BigKevSeattle]

Hmmm, very interesting. In my particular situation, I did not wire my the steps to the door and the dome light at the same time. I only offered a solution that you could do this in conjunction with a manual switch to chose which you'd like to use for your signalling, either the door OR the dome lights, but not both at the same time.

Without seeing your setup firsthand... My gut reaction would be to tell you that you need to disconnect whatever wiring you have hooked up to the door wiring entirely. ONLY hook up to the dome lights. Once you have the system working with JUST the dome lights, then you can come back and try to get fancy by putting in a switch to toggle between the door or the dome for signaling (or neutral "off".)

Nothing about this procedure should cause the dome lights to stay on. The only way the dome lights are being used is to pull a tiny little draw off the hot wire of the dome lights to power the relay switch, which in turn grounds the signaling wire on the opposite poles for the Amp steps.

If you'd like, first disconnect your door wiring from the setup entirely and if still doesn't work as desire. If not snap a pic of your relay and get it over to me which will help me better understand your wiring.

FWIW... I have two relays, one for each step. I did this because I basically was replicating the existing setup where each step was grabbing it's signaling from each door independently. If I was to do it all again, I'd go with just a single relay switch that is then connected up to wiring for both steps at the same time. That way both steps are receiving the exact same grounding signal at the exact same time. Right now, one relay switch is just a HAIR faster than the other, so my steps deploy and retract at slightly different times. Now mind you, when I say a HAIR faster, I am literally talking maybe a 1/4 second at best. It's enough to bug me, but not enough to cause me to go re-wire it using a single relay (which honestly, would take, ohh, um... 10 minutes to toss a wire from say the drivers side to the passenger side?)

Also, another FWIW... I run my system off my dome lights exclusively. I originally thought I would switch back to using the door signaling when I put the doors on but I don't because it's not worth it. The OEM Amp solution allows the steps to deploy/retract independently of each other, and they don't retract when you open up the rear tail gate. In my solution, both steps retract all the time, no matter what door is open, and even if I unlock the vehicle while walking up to it. Big whoop, that tiny difference in how they operate was just not worth alternating between the two different signals based on when I have the doors on and off.

Timmy- one question. When you disconnect the door harness and remove the doors- the dome lights don't work- so how will they power the steps? I just unplugged the door harnesses and tried it. Nothing. Could this be due to them wiring to the door switch and the dome light circuit simultaneously?

[Timmy]

Timmy- one question. When you disconnect the door harness and remove the doors- the dome lights don't work- so how will they power the steps? I just unplugged the door harnesses and tried it. Nothing. Could this be due to them wiring to the door switch and the dome light circuit simultaneously?

What you are describing is not my experience. My dome lights still work even with the doors off. When I press the unlock button on my key fob, the dome lights come on with all the doors off. When I turn the toggle switch on my light stalk to turn on the interior lights, my dome lights come on, and then when I turn the switch off, my dome lights go off. When I open my rear tailgate, my lights go on and when I close the rear tailgate, the lights go off after a certain amount of time.

It is possible that if they wired the door signalling in with the dome lights to the same relay, that it might have really foobar'd something. Who knows, maybe it actually blew a fuse?

Seattle eh? I was over there with my Jeep just a few months ago. Do you ever make it over to Spokane?

I see you sent me PM. If you'd like, I can send you my email address via PM, though I suspect this discussion is worth having posted publicly to help others.

[BigKevSeattle]

I'm working with some contractors from Spokane right now. Carpita Construction. I'll pm you my number. Give me a call sometime

[Timmy]

I'm working with some contractors from Spokane right now. Carpita Construction. I'll pm you my number. Give me a call sometime

Cool! Sadly the east side of the state is a little limited on trails, but I'd be happy to take you where I can when you are here. We did a Black-Friday Jeep trip to a local area just after Thanksgiving, but man, the DNR put four Kelly humps in the path so we had to find an alternative route, which turned into following an ATV route to get around it all. To say my Jeep got scraped up would be an understatement. I really hate when the states block off access to our parks from off-road vehicles!

[Jacob]

Stupid question but this is driving me mad!! I have gotten the passenger side to work, but cannot seem to get the drivers side to work. Did you tap into two separate yellow wires (one on the passenger side and one on the drivers side?) If so, where is the drivers side wire located?

[Timmy]

Stupid question but this is driving me mad!! I have gotten the passenger side to work, but cannot seem to get the drivers side to work. Did you tap into two separate yellow wires (one on the passenger side and one on the drivers side?) If so, where is the drivers side wire located?

Well for starters, you can control both steps at the same time from one relay switch. So if you have the relay switch working on the passengers side, just attach the drivers side amp control cable to the same part of the relay that you did with the passenger side. You don't have to mess with putting a relay switch in on the drivers side like I did. Looking back, I should have just wired mine with a single relay switch that controlled both steps of the LED footwell light.

As for your actual question. You tap into the 12v lead to the LED footwell light for your signal for the relay switch. For the AMP step, you have to pull the driver's side signal cable over from the wire loom on the passenger side to the drivers side just like the AMP manual shows. In other words, get the entire system working according to the AMP instructions. Once you have done that, swapping from the signaling from the door signaling to the LED lighting signaling just uses the directions I've already posted.