Hella 500 Setup

I'm on the verge of ordering a pair of Hella 500s for my front bumper. I want to set them up with a three way switch so that I can either have them off, on all the time, or on with the highbeams. My knowledge of relays and whatnot has yet to be tested, so I thought I'd ask y'all for your thoughts first.
Can I do this 3-way setup with the relay which comes with the lights? How am I going to have to run the wiring between relay-highbeam wires-etc?
Eventually I'm probably going to want to mount four more of the same on the roof, but I'll have them wired with just an on-off switch.

Thanks,
Tucker

I am confused. Why not just use a on/off switch, like you suggest for the top??

Michael

easiest is just take power form the hi beams to the switch and then to the relay, that way they caom on only with the hi beams and off when the hi beams go off, but are overridden by the switch. otherwise you get into wiring in diodes to prevent backflow of electricity. but can be done with diodes from Radio Shack or from an rv plalce as they use these to wire up car lights so that when towed by the rv the tailights don't backfeed into the towed vehicles system. John

2xtreme said:

I am confused. Why not just use a on/off switch, like you suggest for the top??

Click to expand...

I guess I like to make things difficult for myself. I'd like to:
1. Have them go on and off with the highbeams when I use them on the road, so I don't have to hit two switches everytime I want highbeams.
2. Not leave them on by accident when dimming my brights.
3. Have the ability to just turn them on and off by themselves when I want to play with them.
4. Be able to keep them off to reduce electrical drain.


Maybe I'm asking too much from a set of lights, but I thought it would be a good project.
I suppose I could just wire them into the highbeams and deal.

I would set it up as an auto/manual switch.

You need a 3 position maintained selector switch.

The switch will have an auto(on when highbeams on, off when dim), manual(lights on all the time), and off position.

You would then wire one side of the switch to a wire that has power when lights are on bright, the other side is wired to a hot 12 VDC supply, the common then goes to the coil for your light relay.

Good Luck.

Tuckman,
I set mine up with a DPDT center off toggle switch. They are available from radio shack. http://hodge.beevomit.org/schematics/Fog.jpg there is my schematics, kinda messy but you can ignore a lot of it. I have the same setup for my AUX Backup lights. Basically I setup the relay and wiring like they suggested in the Hella directions to turn on with High beams. Just added the toggle switch in there. I hope the drawing helps some.

Hodge

I have Hella 500 fog on my '96. They come with the entire wiring kit and directions to setup exactly how you're asking. You get installation instructions that allow you to setup the lights with different on/off options and the wiring kit comes w/relay, rocker switch, and connectors. I found that the hardest part was figuring out which wires turned on my high beams/low beams, etc. I'm not an electrician, so it was challenging and I bailed on splicing them with my low/high beams. I didn't have my shop manual back then, either, and all I knew how to do was hook up a relay and toggle. That made it much easier. Also, I swapped out the 50 watt bulbs (H3 I think) for piaa 100 watt bulbs (about $40). This basically gave me a really bright fog light pattern with pencil beam distance.