a buddy of mine rigged up a switch box that has 4 lighted switches (for fog lights and neons inside his 86 camaro). he took the postive and negative wires from all switches and connected them together, then took a single wire for the ground for all of them and a single wire to positive of battery with an in-line fuse. the problem is that we keep blowing the fuse, no matter what amp fuse we use (used 5, 10, 15, and 20 amp fuses). all of them blew. then we disconnected all of the neons from the switches and just hooked the switches up, all the fuses blew again (the switches weren't even hooked up to anything).

our knowledge of electronics is limited, so what are we missing here?

 

Switches only complete a circuit.You need to use the switch to open/close either ground only or 12v only. Connecting gnd and 12v to the switch will cause a direct short when the switch is closed(turned on). For ex: ground the neon to a ground point on the vehicle.Then use the switch on the 12v power wire to the neon between the 12v source and the neon(or transformer).

 

ok, that was easy enough. thanks bro. now that i look back at it, i realize how easy and obvious that was.

but one more question: what would've caused the fuses to blow when the switches weren't hooked to anything? they were just grounded and hooked to positive but they still blew the fuses. i have so much to learn.........................

 

The switches didn't have to be hooked up to anything.The short occured at the switch itself.