What wire for spotlights and where to get it?

[whiteknight]

Am hooking up 4 spotties on the rollbar, 2 on the bullbar and 2 smaller ones as reverse lights.

Was wondering where the best place to get the cable and relays from?

I was going to use 6mm cable is this the right gauge to use?

[familybus]

see if you guys have a Vanline distributer up there! cheap and all good quality shit

[Cossie]

Am hooking up 4 spotties on the rollbar, 2 on the bullbar and 2 smaller ones as reverse lights.

Was wondering where the best place to get the cable and relays from?

I was going to use 6mm cable is this the right gauge to use?

4mm should be ok if its a different wire to each light. What wattage are the lights?

[simkell]

mate i would wire the lights up in pairs with a relay and fuse for each pair of lights. you could use a common switch for all lights or individual swithes for each pair. 6mm dia cable is suffiecient, solder all connections and a 30 amp fuse for each pair of lights. ingrams is a wholesaller put will sell small qaunterties to anyone. they fairly cheap and have all the gear.

[drivesafe]

Hi whiteknight, the two diagrams bellow should give you all the details you need, including cable sizes.

[Klappers]

lightforce, ebay

[+dj_hansen+]

www.jaycar.com.au, lightforce relays are about $80, you should be able to make a better loom to suit all those lights for about $100 if you make it yourself using bits from jaycar. You might also want to consider one of the fuse blocks you can buy from Narva (about $10 from autobarn/repco/bursons) and run a large cable from your battery to that instead of trying to hang 4+ extra wires off your battery.

wire the lights up in pairs to a relay, and make sure your altenator can handle the 50+amps youll be drawing with all the forward facing lights on at once.

That diagram is excellent, however 1 thing to remember the bigger cable you can get away with the better the lights will perform (within reason of course)

[GQ Bear]

I am about to re-wire my lights for neatness, etc. This is how i was going to do it using 5 -core trailer wire

Any problems? Its the same way i've got 'em wired now. Will i get brighter lamps if i;

1) use 5mm to and from lights io 4mm
2) and loop wire from 85 to 30 on relay io earthed.
3) And earth lights to neg on battery as opposed to body.
4) And use 2mm wiring elsewhere io 4mm
5) and wire lights seperately off seperate 87 pins on relay

thanks

[wrksux]

wow thats possibly the best layed out diagram for wiring ive seen, why cant they all be that easy to read and follow?

good find

[+dj_hansen+]

GQ Bear, you dont really need 4mm to trigger the relay, they draw less than 1amp, it might make your lights come on 1millisecond faster.

Probably the only real gain youll get is if to connect your earth back to the battery, and us 5mm cable to your lights. Also dont connect pin 85 and 30 together or youll get a pool of molten metal and plastic at your feet

Other than that, none of the other things will yield any vast improvement.

[Oscars]

80 bucks for a relay, dont pay over $15 for a 50 amp,5mm twin to the lamps will look the tidyest

[-Scott-]

Also dont connect pin 85 and 30 together or youll get a pool of molten metal and plastic at your feet

No, he needs to connect 85 to 30 instead of 85 going to ground. If 85 goes to ground AND to 30, then you are correct. The way he has drawn his diagram, 86 is switched to ground, so 85 needs +12V.

Scott

[drivesafe]

Hi GQ Bear, the diagram you have in your post is modified and will not work as both relay coil terminals are now going to negative.

This is what happens when people with no knowledge of what there doing, alter diagrams with out the permission of the owner.

The original diagram is correct and furthermore, there is no reason for bringing both Diving light positive wires off the same out put pin.

The relay shown in the original diagram is a headlight relay and as such, has two out put pins.

The only time you need to use the same out put pin is when you use a Changeover Relay. These look exactly the same as a headlight relay but instead of two 87 pins, the changeover relay has 1 x 87 and 1 x 87a.

By the way, a new diagram of a simpler set up, will be posted on the other site and will be available to anyone wishing to use it for their own use.

Please ignore this modified mess and save yourself some trouble when it doesn’t work.

Oscars and Scott have it right so take notice of the original diagrams.

Cheers.

[drivesafe]

One more point, for the non-believers of upgrading driving light wire looms.

Most, if not all driving lights that come with prewired looms, use grossly under sized wire and the end result is duller lights and shorter globe life span.

Upgrading pays for itself over time.

Cheers.

[GQ Bear]

Thanks for your advice, and in particular Drivesafe. I was in way trying to suggest the original diagram was wrong i just altered it to show how mine is currently wired and whether it would be improved or not by re-wiring it. I just thought it would be easier to modify the original than draw a new one or try to explain it in words.

Cheers, Glenn

[kirragc]

Supersheap have a kit for wiring in aplifiers that has nearly everything you need for 2 lights. I bought 2 and rewired the headlights for high out put as well as the spots.
Cost about $12 each from memory.
I got 2 plus relays for about $35

[hando]

Why does the light switch in the diagram have three pins? Is the power coming from the highbeam line or the 12v line?

[chimpboy]

...

[whiteknight]

Anyone around Brisbane southside that knows what they are doing and can give me a hand with the headlight wiring upgrade? Me and wiring dont mix :(

[Tubby]

I have a Pirhana relay with 6 posts.
Two go to the driving lights.
Two get linked together - do you also run power to one of these?
One would go to the switch
And one would go to negative.

Anyone with one of these relay and can help out with what goes where?
Keen to have them going for the weekend.

Thanks in advanced.

Found it......

http://www.piranhaoffroad.com.au/default.htm

[drivesafe]

Hi Tubby, I now market two wiring upgrade kits, one for headlights and the the other, a combo kit for upgrading both the headlights and driving lights in one kit.

These two diagrams are from the kits but will give you the info you need to wire up the relay you have.

If you follow the wiring in the diagrams, you won’t need a multi meter to sort out whether you have the positive or negative switched headlights.

The wiring in the diagram automatically sorts it out for you.

BTW how much did the relay cost you.

Cheers.

[Tubby]

Thanks DRIVESAFE

That was exactly the diagrams I need....
Funny how things make sense when there are some basic instructions…

BTW how much did the relay cost you.

In regards to cost…. I got the relay for nix but I think they cost around $20.00 from piranha….

I ended up getting them working last night and I’ll tackle the head lights next week..

Cheers

[Mick_n_Sal]

Hando,

The switch has 3 pins so that it can be activated at any time ( when set to 12V Position ) OR in sync with the High Beam.

The way the original drawings are you can't run High beam without the spotties.

A better option would be to do this with an on-off-on switch. This way you could run high beam without the spots.

Mick_n_Sal