This is a post on a project that has taken the better part of 6 weekends to complete: The addition of an integrated switch panel to control front fog lights, roof lights and rear lights for the H2. The challenge is that there are few places to put a switch panel except in the front console, and no simple options seem to exist like they do for the Toyota trucks that have OEM switches and switch panel banks.

I know there was a post on how to take the OEM fog light switch from the Tahoe/Acadia, and use it... but that is one fog light switch, and I needed more.





Here is the result of this multi-week project. See the switch panel under the HVAC unit and to the left of the cigarette lighter.




Challenge:

• How to fit switches into the small area of the dash compartment pocket (part nbr 15898379)
• How to utilize switches that would look OEM
• AND - what took the most time, and I won't go into this... how to route all the wiring to relays and send all that wiring to the dash compartment

Buttons, Switches and Ports:

• First, I had to find switches that would fit the height and shallow depth available. I like the look of the Toyota switches, and Toyota supports two switch sizes, large and small. The small switches at 1.28" x .87" had the right dimensions for the space. While they are deep, they just barely fit in the compartment space available.
• I found that there are several manufacturers of custom switches for the Toyota market: Nilight and MicTuning. It is a pretty vibrant market with one manufacturer on Amazon called Stark Industries that will put any custom graphic on the button. So there were lots of options to choose from. I quickly found a fog light button, roof lights button, and rear lights button.
• I have a Pioneer 4600nex tuner in the system, and I really needed a central place to put the USB ports and support video in motion via HDMI... and there are options for those as well that fit the 1.28" x .87" form factor.

Switch Plate:

• I looked all over for a switch plate option. Most are meant to place in the dash, forcing you to cut a hole in the dash. I just did not want that.
• The next option was 3D printing a switch plate. This took 6-8 versions to get a version that would fit well.
• Of course, like everything else on an H2, it had to have a logo...
• After one was printed that fit, we did some testing in the sun, and found that heat would weaken the front structure, so we added metal support rods to provide horizontal support across the front face.
• The switch plate is held in place on the sides with 3M double sided mounting tape

Here are some views of switch plate.

Undergoing some testing now...