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

[WhiteRavenRR]

Nicely done!

[Charlie]

Timmy could you enlighten me as to how you connected your relays? I assume that the steps works when the doors are connected and also work when the doors are off.

[Timmy]

Timmy could you enlighten me as to how you connected your relays? I assume that the steps works when the doors are connected and also work when the doors are off.

I'm not sure I follow exactly on your question? I thought my write-up gave enough detail on the relay I used, the wiring I used, the connectors I used? Happy to help, but maybe get a little more specific if you would.

And yes, this solution will work with doors on or off. The problem with this solution when the doors are on is that AMP distinctly designed their solution to lower the steps only on the side that the door was opened on, and to retract as soon as the door is closed. By connecting to the dome lights, this solution will lower the steps on both sides whenever any door is opened (including the rear tailgate) and they will stay down until the dome lights go off. So as such, when you have your door and top on, it might appear the operation is a little goofy compared to what most people are used to seeing, however, the actually usage will still operate at the right time when you need them down to step on them. If you get the right type of splice though, it would actually be a snap to swap them from the relay solution here back over to using the wire for the doors. AMP included a nice wire tap that I had not seen before, that if utilized for both solutions (you'd have to buy more of course,) would allow you swap rather quickly, OR, you could get really fancy and put in a toggle switch that flip/flops between which solution you would use, that would be SAWEEEEEEET! Shoot, I may just do that. In fact, I may go so far as to put the button in the center stack set of buttons. If you did this, then in theory you could get away with just installing a single relay switch to control both steps instead of the two that I used (one on each side) and instead put your effort into installing the button. Ooooh, oooohh, ooooh, even better, you could get a lighted button that lights when the steps are down when used with the relay, then you'd have a nice visual (in addition to the dome lights being on) that your steps are down.

[MrWayneD]

Timmy; do you have the wiring diagram to using a 7 pin Carling switch along with the relay to be able to switch back and forth from key fob to "Standard" step operation

Thank you in Advance

[Timmy]

Timmy; do you have the wiring diagram to using a 7 pin Carling switch along with the relay to be able to switch back and forth from key fob to "Standard" step operation

Thank you in Advance

Sorry, I don't, but it would be cake to do. Basically put a switch in place that switches between using the dom light for the signal (via the relay I described earlier) or using the door open signal that AMP has you tap in to. You could accomplish this with a very simply three pin switch. Center goes to the AMP control head, top lead to dom relay, bottom lead to door. If you wanted to get fancy, you could put in a three position rocker switch that has an on/off/neutral setting so that when it's in neutral it is not connected to anything so that the steps would not lower at all (say if you were off-roading and jammed against a rock and didn't want the steps to retract at all if you opened the door.)

At first I thought I would want to move my signaling back to the doors and off the dome light when I put the doors back on. I've learned, I don't care. Dome light comes on when I open any door, steps retract, which is all I care about. The difference for me is that both steps retract versus just the step on the side the door opened. No big deal for me, it doesn't bother me, so I just left my wiring in place.

Hope that helps.

[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?