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Offroad Lighting Wiring

R

RenegadeStang

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Statesboro, GA
I've got two 130W lights mounted on the front. I want my switch for them to be hot all the time, so I'll be wiring the switch directly from the battery. What amperage fuse should I put inline between the battery and the switch? 5A? The switch is rated for 30A.
 
Now, the fuse I'm looking for is the switch side, not the relay side. I have a 30A fuse for the relay side. Looking around at different wiring diagrams, some of them have 3A fuses for the switch side.
 
Is it common and/or recommended to have a fuse to the switch? All mine have fuses between the battery and relay but nothing between the relay and the switch... But I'm a wiring moron so I could have easily screwed that up!
 
G2, I have all my switches sharing a common power feed, and just fused that.

You can probably get away without fusing it, but proper electrical principles dictates that all circuits should be fused.
 
Better be safe than sorry... I did have a small electrical fire in my 89... I know how it feels to almost loose it... some people were not that fortunate.
 
I fused my 4 lights on my roof rack...

When I was 17 I had a car burn to the ground, courtesy of the late "Circuit City", they tapped in to an incorrect line on a car stereo install... drove my car home from the shop during the day. Three hours later I go to leave at dusk, flip on the headlights 100 yds from my house and the whole car filled with smoke... 15 minutes later it was gone. Couldnt salvage anything in the car.

Needless to say, I wire all my own stuff now... the right way
 
Breezio69 said:
When I was 17 I had a car burn to the ground, courtesy of the late "Circuit City" ... Needless to say, I wire all my own stuff now... the right way
Click to expand...

That SUX! My sister totaled my car when I was 17 ... Needless to say I don't let sis borrow my car anymore!! Easier to deal with when it's family though. :twak:

souske said:
G2, I have all my switches sharing a common power feed, and just fused that.

You can probably get away without fusing it, but proper electrical principles dictates that all circuits should be fused.
Click to expand...

Fair enough! I currently take my switch power off the lighter, which is fused, but better safe than sorry. I feed mine off a common power line the same, so this should be easy to accomplish. But am I correct to assume that the wires running from the relay to the switch do NOT need to be fused? Yes, power to switch and power to relay need to be fused, but Relay to Switch??

In short, if I understand correctly, I should follow this diagram exactly:

relays3.gif
 
G2WANIT said:
Is it common and/or recommended to have a fuse to the switch? All mine have fuses between the battery and relay but nothing between the relay and the switch... But I'm a wiring moron so I could have easily screwed that up!
Click to expand...
Some folks use a swithch to complete the ground of the relay. In that case you would not need a fuse for the switch. For any cirucuit there should be a fuse between the supply and load side of the circuit.
 
the above is how I always run my switches. I always have my switches run to activate a relay though to and let the relay take the amps. I have had to many switches, high quality and less, get hot and melt almost causing fires in my vehicles. Last one got so hot it was pliable like putty. So now I use a relay and switch on everything. Switch is used only to finish the connection for the ground side of the relays internal switch..
 
Thanks John and Merlin, but perhaps you've never met a proper moron before? As a wiring moron, I have NO IDEA what you're talking about! :roll:

So, let me attempt to decipher this: do you mean that people will put the switch off the 85 pin on the relay and then, I don't know, run 86 off the battery with 30? Or just run the battery power to 86 and 30 is empty? Something like this would make sense to my feeble mind, the switch would ground the relay and therefore turn the lights on??

I guess I don't understand exactly how this is safer though, doesn't the ground carry a charge as well?

Or perhaps I'm all messed up and what you mean is you wire 30 to ground and 85 to the battery and everything else stays the same?
 
there are two circuits in a relay, the load circuit, which connects to the battery at one end(Pin 30), and the light or whatever on the side (Pin 87).


THEN theres the switch circuit, one side gets +12v(Pin 86), the other ground (Pin 85). When it gets both 12v, and ground, it completes the load circuit, the relay completes the load circuit and the light comes on.

To activate the switch circuit, some people put a switch between 12v and Pin 86, While leaving pin 85 permanantly connected to ground. This is a 'switched hot'

HOWEVER, if you run a 'switched ground', you can put a switch between pin 85, and the grounding screw. You can then just daisy chain your battery hot from pin 30 right into pin 86. This solitary +12v feed from the battery only requires 1 fuse, and 1 wire from the battery.

I much prefer switched ground wiring.
 
Awesome - thanks! Appreciate all the help on this, it makes a lot of sense to switch the ground. Shouldn't take more than 20 min or so to change mine so I'm all over it!

Sorry Renegade for jumping all over your thread, but thanks for starting it. :D
 
I understand the benefit of moving the switch from a hot to a grounded wire, but how does it cut down on wire used? If you're running the switch to the cab it seems that the same amount of wire is used, whether its switched hot or ground.
 
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