who's good with fog lights?

i bought a set of fogs from autozone today, got everything completely installed and switched them on, came on perfect,but when i turned the switch off, the fuse blew immediately. it was a 10a, so i put another in and it blew within a second. same with a 15a and a 30a fuse. the fuse is in a fuse holder on the wire coming out of the battery about 3 feet from the battery. what could be goin' on here? bad ground? higher fuse? did i wire it wrong?

for a set of fogs mounted on the front bumper in the stock location, where should my ground location be? and can i ground both lights in the same location. right now my grounds from the lights are spliced together and then grounded on the firewall right below the passenger side window wiper.

looking for some opinions, ready to get this jeep trail-worthy. i appreciate it, guys

A bad ground would make the lamps dim and would not blow a fuse - it sounds like you have a short somewhere. Installing larger and larger fuses is a great way to send everything up in smoke, find your short or wiring mistake via process of elimination before doing anything else!

You can ground to the same location without a problem, I'd probably even ground to a bolt on the radiator crossmember or one of the fenders since they are closer to the fog lights than the firewall.

Using a relay to power the lights, or running directly off the switch? First thought is that you've got a short, second is incorrectly wired. A pair of 55W lamps should draw less than 10A. Shouldn't be cooking fuses off left and right.

the kit i bought has the hot wire going directly to the switch from the battery, with only a 10A fuse between the two. with a brand new kit, what are the chances of a short being anywhere in the wires? and if i was to switch it up and put a relay in there, what kind of relay to i need to pick up?

I would run a relay so you don't have full power running through the switch, I think it should be illegal to have such a "cheap" dangerous design, but anyways you are most likley shorting somwhere, did you use a groument in the firewall?, are the terminals of the switch touching something?, you really just need to go from the battery out and inspect every inch of wire untill you find whats shorting it.

Is it a lighted switch? If so make sure you dont have the hot leed on the ground terminal for the light on the switch.

running from the battery through a fuse through a swithc to the lights is fine! ive done that with many many lights and never had a problem if your mounting serface is metal you can ground there (light mount) if the switch is off when you blow the fuse more than likely the problem is between the switch and fuse. if you have to turn the switch on to blow the fuse its between the switch


if you decide you need a relay
http://www.offroaders.com/images/projects/lightforce/wiring-diag.gif

if its a light up switch try moving the wires around i bet you got one backwards. or you scraped the wire as you were pulling it. its only a few wires not that hard to pull it apart redo it