Wiring up Spotlights

[BadHabit]

Just wanted some help, wanting to wire up my own spotlights I bought but don't know really how... There going in a 04 hilux..

[shooter]

more info - what kind of spotlights? how many of them? where are you mounting them? who's installing them and how much experience have they had with electrical work ?

[BadHabit]

There hella 3003 spread beam, I'm putting them on the bull bar, I know the basics like I know I need a relay, fuse just don't know how to hook them up, the globes are H1's and I want to hook them up to my hi-beams coz I heard I can get a pink slip if there on a separate switch.

[shooter]

As far as i know in QLD you run them off your highbeams to a seperate switch. You can do this a number of differnet ways, off the light stalk on your driving colomn or off the back of your driving lights. And either active switching ( positive ) ground switching (negative)

Once you've decided whats going to be easier for you, you have to have a look at where you going to mount the relay to avoid the ingress of water, make it easy to install and repair and close enough to the battery and spotlights. The best spot ive noticed so far is in the engine bay and is closer to the windscreen on the drivers side. ( highest spot possible with easy access and inline with the wiring going back into the cabin )

So once you've mounted spotties and relay you have to have a look at where all your wiring is going to go. avoiding hot areas like over the top of radiators etc will get you the best life out of it, sounds obvious but you'd be suprised at what some people do with wiring in cars!

Once thats sussed and you can see where you have to enter into the cabin with your cabling and found a cable pathway to your switch then you have to look at the 2 seperate circuits that you'll have for your spotlights;

First is power

The power circuit is usually just one singular active cable running from your battery to the contacts on your relay and then paralled up to the spotties ( a wiring diagram will make this easier to understand ) AND IT IS NECCESSARY THAT YOU USE AN APPROPRIATE SIZED FUSE INLINE WITH THIS CIRCUIT.

The ground or neutral of the power circuit will usually be out of the back ofthe spotties to your bullbar.

Second is control

Now im going to give you the run down on active switching.

This wire will run from either the back off your drivinglights highbeam wire or your steering stalk high beam wire to a switch ( as you want to be able to control your highbeams and spotlights serperately ie being able to turn on highbeams without having the spotlights come on until you switch them)

So from the highbeam of either stalk or drivinglights it goes into the first contact of your switch. The other side goes to the relay control contact. There is usually 4 or 5 contacts on the relay and one of them will ground to the frame to close the circuit for the relay. This is often a wire thats already mounted on the relay when you get it and is rather short with a lug on it - ground it to the body.

So as you can see the control circuit cable goes like this:

HIGH BEAM SIGNAL (+) > FUSE > SWITCH > RELAY and ground the (-) to the car.

and the power goes

BATTERY (+) > FUSE > RELAY > SPOTTIES and ground the (-) to the bullbar

a couple of pointers to remember which most people either skip out on or stinge out on are things like quality lugs/cable and safely running there cable, a friend of mine go stuck out bush at night beacuse he didnt fuse his spotilights and burnt all the wiring for them and his headlights.

any other questions or things you want explained further then just ask!

[cruzinnboozn]

Or you could go to the auto electrical section and read the "how to wire up spot lights" thread........

[BadHabit]

Haha thanks bud just new on this site, as for shooter.. Thanks buddy ur a champion thanks for ur time buddy.. I'll let use know how I go..