The switch panel decides what the rest of the build can do

A build usually happens in this order. Light bar. Driving lights. Work lights at the back. Fridge. Compressor. Then, somewhere near the end, a way to turn all of it on.

By then the switching is whatever fits the money that is left, and it is bolted onto a set of decisions that were made without it. That is backwards, and the bill arrives about a year later when you want to add one more circuit.

What a backbone actually is

Two ways to switch six accessories.

The first: a relay under the bonnet for each one, a fuse tap piggybacked onto whichever factory circuit was convenient, and a switch pod glued to the A-pillar. It works. Every fault in it is a separate investigation, because nothing shares a design — six earths in six places, six fuses of six ratings, and no single point where you can see what is drawing.

The second: one control box, one loom, one place where every circuit is switched, rated and labelled. That is what our panels are: the control box mounts in the engine bay, the panel mounts on the dash, and the only thing crossing the firewall is a signal cable. The current never enters the cabin.

The second one is not tidier. It is a different thing — a system rather than six installations that happen to be on the same vehicle.

Four things the panel decides for everything downstream

The ceiling. A TC-SW4 passes 40A. A TC-SW6 or TC-SW8 passes 60A. A TC-SWT10 passes 80A, a TC-SW12 passes 100A. You can outgrow that number, and when you do, nothing else you bought is at fault — the lamps are fine, the wiring is fine, the panel is full. Everything you add for the rest of the build’s life lives inside the number you pick now.

The allocation. The ceiling is not one pool. A TC-SW8 splits its 60A into 2×30A, 2×20A, 2×10A and 2×5A, so the shape of the panel decides which circuits can exist at all. Two 30A circuits and you can run two heavy loads; you cannot turn those into six 10A circuits because you would rather have six.

Put a real list against that. A pair of TC-Q90C driving lights is 90W each, 15A for the pair at 12V, so they want one of the 20A channels rather than two of the 10A ones — one circuit, one switch, both lamps. A light bar takes another. Work lights at the back take a third. Fridge, compressor, and a spare for whatever comes next, and eight channels are gone before anything unusual has been fitted.

Which is the point. The allocation is not a specification you check against a lamp; it is the shape of every circuit you will ever have on that vehicle.

Where the current runs. In a panel build the heavy conductors stop at the control box in the engine bay. The dash panel is signal only. That is a safety decision more than a tidiness one, and it is fixed by the architecture rather than by how carefully somebody routed the loom.

How you reach it. Buttons on the TC-SW8, a 5-inch 1920×1080 touchscreen on the TC-SWT10, a wireless remote about 30m from the vehicle on the TC-SW8W, or the app over Bluetooth. Whether you can turn the rear work lights on while standing at the back of the truck is decided here, once.

The part that is not hardware

We define the hardware, the interface and the app in-house, and the factory builds to that specification. The reason that matters to a buyer is narrow and practical: a hard technical question from your customer has an answer, because someone here decided it rather than accepted it from a catalogue.

What it buys on the panel itself: 70 OEM icon options, so eight circuits read like a factory fitment rather than a label maker’s afternoon. Per-circuit modes — toggle, momentary, flashing or strobe — set from the MODE button or the app. Backlight colour per switch. And grouping, so one tap drives several circuits at once: camp lights on, or everything off before you turn the key.

That is four things the app does. It is worth being exact about, because an app that dims or renames circuits is a different product from one that does not, and ours does the four above.

Protection is a design decision, not a feature list

Every panel in the range switches without mechanical relay contacts except the TC-SW6R, which is the relay version on purpose. No contacts means nothing to pit, weld or chatter — and our own warranty puts the difference at 5 years against 3.

The TC-SWT10 goes a step further, and it is the clearest example of switching as system design rather than as a component:

• Electronic-fuse switching on every channel.
• A per-channel working monitor with overcurrent protection.
• LVCO low-voltage cut-off.

The last one earns its place at camp. Fridge running, lights on, engine off, and the thing that decides whether you drive out in the morning is whether anything stopped the load before the starting battery went flat. A cut-off built into the panel does that without you watching a voltmeter.

Building for the version of the truck you do not own yet

Three habits worth having, all cheap now and expensive later.

Leave a circuit spare. Every build grows. A spare 10A channel costs nothing today; a second panel next year costs a panel, a loom and a day.

Work to 20% headroom. Add up what runs at once, add a fifth, and buy for that. A panel at its ceiling on the day it is fitted has no room for the winch solenoid, the second fridge or the rear camera that turns up later, and the upgrade is not a swap — it is the panel, the loom and a day under the dash.

Check the counterpart before you commit. Some models come in pairs — the TC-SW8B is the wired panel, the TC-SW8W is the same eight circuits and the same per-channel ratings with a wireless remote added. Knowing which side you are on matters if you might want the other one later.

And whichever you fit, the range runs 12–24V. On 24V the same lamp draws half the current, which is the quiet reason a 24V truck fits more onto one panel.

Why we are precise about all this

The switch panel line holds CE, FCC, RoHS 2.0 and REACH, and the certificate numbers are published on the product pages so a distributor can check them against the scans.

Our driving lights, work lights and light bars publish no certification marks at all. Not because they are untested — because we hold no certificate on file for those lines yet, and a mark is a legal declaration. The same applies to specifications: where the factory has not confirmed a figure, the page says “to be confirmed” instead of printing a number that looks right.

That is the same discipline the panel itself is built on. A backbone is only worth the name if the numbers it is specified with are ones you can hold us to.

Where to start

Start with the circuit list and the total current, not with the switch count — that is the whole argument in sizing a switch panel. When you know which panel covers it, wiring an 8-gang panel walks through where the two boxes go and what crosses the firewall.

Or send us the list. Every circuit, what it draws, and what the truck is for. We will tell you which panel covers it — or that none of ours does.

Where it goes

Two boxes, one loom

The control box carries the current and lives in the engine bay. The panel only carries signal, so the cable through the firewall is thin and easy to route.

1. 1

   Control box — engine bay

   Carries every amp. Mounts on the inner guard or firewall, fused channels facing down, battery leads straight to the terminals.

2. 2

   Wired main panel — within reach of the wheel

   Signal only, so one thin cable through an existing firewall grommet. Mounts on the dash, a pillar or an overhead console.

3. 4

   Phone app — the same eight channels

   Everything the panels switch, plus the setup the buttons cannot do:

   • Backlight colour, per switch
   • Icon, per switch — the same 70-icon set
   • Mode, per circuit — toggle, momentary, flashing or strobe
   • Grouping, so one tap drives several circuits

   Over Bluetooth — and the radio sits in the wired main panel, not in the remote, so the app works close to the vehicle. When you need distance, the remote is the tool. On this model the Bluetooth module is an option, not fitted as standard.