School me on offroad lighting

[blackk5350]

i will be adding aout 14 lights to my blazer after i get it back on the road. i know that alot but its my truck

so can someone tell me the best way of wiring them fuse panel, gauge wire how to etc. i would really appreciate it. thanks. because im not to goo at wiring yet. i wish i could take a class or soemthing. i just need a wiring your truck for offroad lights for dummys haha. thanks

 

[badmix]

You can run 2 lights off one relay. so youll need a bank of 7 relays. Not sure what your funds look like. But id invest in some painless wiring relay banks and maybe even their aux fuse panel so you dont tax your factory harness. And youll have to get a decent switch panel as well.

A few other things I would do is make up a wire harness and label it. 14 lights is going to be ALOT of wires. Make them nice and neat, this will keep the headaches to a minimum. also use the same color consistantly. LIke Red to the fuse panel, green to the lights, black to ground and white to the switch, make it uniformed through out.

 

[tourdog]

you will need relays, switchs, fuses you should also have doul batts hook things to seond batt and you should get big altenator 150 amp or so make shure to have real good grounds on thing you should use atleast 12 gauge wire for no more than 2 lights per run switch and relay depending on size of light i use 50 amp switchs the one with little fuse in them but use the smallest fuse you can 25 or 30 at the main feed per set of light wire right off the batt but fuse!! right off batt. I to have alot of lights on truck never really had any issuses with them .I think it is cool to have many light can land planes ,light up fields ,see what you want to when you want to, make them do all kinds of cool things . and some thing to make poeple say what do you need that many for because i can and i have them.

 

[Mr. Pickle]

Here, read this and pay attention.
http://www.r1200gs.info/howto/relay.html

As stated above, you will need roughly 7 relays and 7 switches depending on how you want to light things up.

Also check this one out:
http://fitchva.com/jeep/?cat=4

This guys is a relay pro and has some cool ideas to keep it clean. Not to understate it but you have a lot of wiring to do, so keep it clean and organize or in no time stuff won't work and you might start a fire.

Good luck and post pics as you go.

 

[dremu]

You should decide the number of relays based on the light power drain. If, say, they're 150W bulbs, that's about 13A apiece, so yeah, that's two lights per a 30A relay. If instead they're 100W lights, that's a bit over 8 amps per, so you could do three of those per relay.

Point being, do your math. You also need to decide on wiring gauge, based on the load and number of circuits, etc.

And there's nothing wrong with excessive lighting

That's my one concession to style over function, to show over go, to chrome over ... well, Smurf camo

-- A

 

[udy2554]

That's alot of wattage! Holy sunlight Batman! Then again, you can only drive as fast as you can see!

 

[Dabba]

subscribed. Im gonna be putting in two hidden floods behind the grille, and im thinking about mounting lights on the rear if i can find a way to hide them as well

 

[dremu]

That's alot of wattage! Holy sunlight Batman! Then again, you can only drive as fast as you can see!

LOL. Nah, that truck, I can see farther than I can drive, I assure ya =))

And ya know, it's not as bad as it looks. The top lights are 55W per, call it 4.5A per, so that's actually only about 32A for the whole bar. I think I used a 40A relay for it and maybe 10AWG wiring.

The Hellas are also 55W per and have their own relay.

I could upgrade the bulbs, but (1) they're expensive, and (2) the higher-output bulbs have drastically short life, as in the ones over 100W have maybe a third of the life of the 55's

-- A

 

[udy2554]

When you talk relays, are you talking the little ice cube style, or something different? I use 1 each for a set of KC 150w sealed beams, 55w Hella driving beams, 55w amber fogs. So far, no probs. Except for tearing off the low mounted drivers lights!

 

[dremu]

When you talk relays, are you talking the little ice cube style, or something different? I use 1 each for a set of KC 150w sealed beams, 55w Hella driving beams, 55w amber fogs. So far, no probs. Except for tearing off the low mounted drivers lights!

Sure. Your basic Bosch-style relay, the ice cube type, is generally good for 25 or 30A. Some of the auto parts places carry that size in a 40A, and I think I've seen some of the specialty places carry 'em bigger ... but for that, you can just use two of the regular ones.

Yours is prolly a bit over 40A all told, but in your case you have more relays than you need electrically, so that you can turn the fogs on separate from the driving lights, say.

I should talk about switch options though ... I love this one...

Almost looks stock ... almost

-- A

 

[udy2554]

"Quick" explanation! The dayliters are on a switch by themselves, not really streetlegal. The Hellas are powered from my hi-beams, then a switch. Only on when switch is on and hi beams are on. The fogs are powered from the low beams, thru a switch. They were only on with the low beams. Now I used Painless' relay so the lows stay on with the hi beams. I think I will switch them separately. The whole idea with the amber is to run them in heavy rain or snow, without any headlites at all. BTW, the Hellas plus the hi and lows really light up the road. The Hellas angle out very slightly to pre-see the deer that love our vehicles. Though the only damage to my Blazer will be a tie rod!

Love the switch bank, tried something similar to the left of the column using lit switches. Cool!

 

[sweetk30]

someone will need a BIGGER alt in there ride with a BIGGEr batt also.

 

[bot0611]

You can wire lights any way you like using always a relay to avoid the over draw of power. i have mine direct from the battery to a switch, you can do from headlights, parklights, any lights, they are just the trigger, but 14 lights wow thats a lot.

 

[udy2554]

I run dual batteries. Red top start battery for the truck and original circuitry. Exide Marine/Deep Cycle for lights, tunes, and winch. Isolated with a Warn isolator and a 105amp alt. So far no issues winching with all the lights on. I don't run the tunes while winching. All seems good so far! I tried to take my time with it all. I do need to find a way to water-proof my relays though. Right now they are on the front support between the radiator and the back of the headlights. Maybe an ammo can mounted under the hood, running out of room though!

 

[Fordum]

14 sounds good to me. Like they said, do the math.
14 lights, at (to take a wild guess ) 100 watts each, is 1400 watts. Divided by 14 volts, if the alternator can keep up, is 100 amps.
If it can't , 117 amps at 12 volts.

We are talking small battery cable here for the primary feed. Then, you have to tap off that for all the individual relays.

So, you are going to need some kind of busbar arraignment.
You might consider checking in at some of the car audio places. They handle more current than that on a regular basis, and have the equipment to split it off.
Plus, you can get a fuse that will handle the primary current and still blow if something shorts out before it burns down the truck.

Remember, fuse to the size of the wire. You should have some cascading fuses.
In other words, the main feed, say 2 ga. can be fused at the battery end with a 150 amp fuse. But, you need a smaller fuse farther down the line. Say, 20 amps from the busbar to the relays with 12 ga wire.

If you short out something at the end of a length of 12 ga, it will vaporize and burn up without the 150 amp fuse ever being bothered. But the 20 will blow before anything bad happens.
Plus, only that circuit will go out. The rest will still light, and it makes trouble shooting simpler.

J

 

[blackk5350]

thanks for all the info. here is what i want to do. have my 14 or 40 lights run off 2 batteries like someone said and have one battery for the lights, winch etc. i dont want to run each wire to the battery. is there a way or THING like a fuse box i think is what im talking about that i can use to run the wire from the relay to the THING(fusebox) than one big wire ti the battery? once again i know nothing about electrical......yet

 

[jonathon]

I need to figure out a way to hook my switches up without drilling into the dash..

For that matter, how are you guys tapping into the battery with the stock style side mounts(not a dual poster like the Optima's)? The boot on my cables prevents a good connection.

How well do the 100w lights.. well light I'm thinking two cheapo tractor lights behind the grill and I'll get 2 blingity-bling chrome offroad lights from Summit for the bumper.

 

[badmix]

tractor lights are usually only 55watt and have a flood light type lense (spread out wide, but short distance). I had some 55watt grill lights, they are marginal at best. I used the stock air horn cutouts to mount mine. Looked good, but performed badly. Ive got KC 8" on my bumper, Im switching from long range lense to short wide lense. Ill get a roof mount something (lightbar or rack) and mount the long range stuff up there.

I wouldnt use chrome, they tend to rust pretty quickly, but thats me.

As far as connecting the lights, tuff call. Ive got optima, one reason I went with this battery was the extra terminals.

A few more points to consider. Ive had to redo my lights once already. I had too many splices and it was causing some kind of draw. Its alot nicer to run one continous piece of wire from point A to point B.

I still suggest an AUX fuse panel like Painless wiring has. You are wanting to run ALOT of lights, but also consider you may want to run other things like Gauges, they get hooked up like lights pretty much, so your going to need power sources for those as well. And if you add CB, Car Amps, inside lights, inside invertors, hardwire GPS, etc etc etc . That is why I went with a secondary fuse panel mounted in the engine bay, I knew Id be adding alot of accessories. Do it right the first time, otherwise youll be asking questions like :

1) my truck burnt down and I dont know why

2) my truck drains the battery in 2days cuz of a draw, I dont know why.

etc etc.

 

[badmix]

Here is my 100watt KCs and my 55watt grill lights

Also dont forget some good backup lights as well. These are the 55watt tractor lights

 

[blackk5350]

what would be a good fuse panel to use from painless or other places