[MustangFrank]

This weekend i installed and wired up a new 20" light bar on the truck. I am having trouble with the wiring. There is the red wire connected to the relay that needs to be connected to the positive terminal on the battery. Then there is another red wire coming from my switch, my diagram said that it also had to be wired directly to the battery.

My problem is that in order to stretch it to the battery, i have to take the switch's red wire and run it straight across the engine bay. Can anyone advised on a better place to connect this? Any help would be greatly appreciated. I attached some pics so you can see what I am working with. Here is a link to what i am working with

Thank you!

 

[whistler]

This might be a dumb question but can you just extend the wire? Would make it possible to rerout the wire.

 

[MustangFrank]

Can that be done without ruining it? If so that is what I would prefer to do. Do you know what kind of wire I would need to do it?

 

[Contra]

buy a soldiering gun, quick silver and wire of the same gauge, also shrink wrap would be nice

once you get it going, let us know how they perform, I may be interested in a new look for my front end
This is what it currently looks like I may move these lights to a different position

 

[JamesInTahoe]

There are lots of people on here that are much better at electrical than me, but I want to raise one question / comment about they way they are saying to wire this.

I looked at the installation diagram on this and it shows a fuse on the power going from the battery to the power side of the relay. But it has no fuse on the wiring going to the switch and the switching side of the relay. In this setup you have an un-fused wire going from the battery to the switch and the switching side of the relay. I would call this a fire hazard if you have a short out or any other wire failure. The switch only sees less than 100mA powering the relay. I would strongly recommend connecting the positive wire to the switch to a keyed power source under the dash. That way (1) the wire is fused, and (2) you can only turn the light on when the key is on so you don't leave it on and drain your battery.

My 2 cents -- worth what was paid for it.

 

[MustangFrank]

At this time I have soldiered additional wiring on with good results. I was able to extend the wires and tuck them away.

JamesInTahoe, I don’t disagree with what you say. Do you know which wire would be best to tap into, or how can I find it?

Right now I am happy with my results and the way it looks but I am not interested in this being a fire hazard. If anyone else out there has suggestions please let me know

 

[JamesInTahoe]

JamesInTahoe, I don’t disagree with what you say. Do you know which wire would be best to tap into, or how can I find it?

Right now I am happy with my results and the way it looks but I am not interested in this being a fire hazard. If anyone else out there has suggestions please let me know

I have tapped into one of the 12V power outlets on the dash for relay power. But that means opening up the center of the dash and doing some digging to get to it -- not that hard, but a little hassle. If you use this just make sure you get the + side going into the outlet. I'm sure there is a keyed positive somewhere closer, but I don't know what it would be.

Since you've already got it wired to the battery an alternative would be to add an in-line fuse in the + wire going to the switch. Just splice it in (same method as your extension wire) as close as possible to where the wire connects to the battery. Go to an auto parts store and you can find a fuse holder just like the one that's on the power wire going to the light. Like this fuse holder. They are only a few dollars, plus the cost of a fuse -- 5 amp will be plenty big for this.

 

[IAm_Not_Lost]

All good advice. Fuse that puppy. Remember, fuses are there to protect the wire, not really anything else, so always (or at least generally) match your fuse to the safe limit the wire gauge can handle over whatever run (length) it has to go. You can find ampacity charts everywhere, and to understand how many amps you will have going through a wire you simply divide the wattage by the volts.

That light bar looks great by the way. Very clean look.

 

[whistler]

buy a soldiering gun, quick silver and wire of the same gauge, also shrink wrap would be nice

once you get it going, let us know how they perform, I may be interested in a new look for my front end
This is what it currently looks like I may move these lights to a different position

Quick silver is mercury.

 

[Contra]

Quick silver is mercury.

And Mercury is used in thermometers


Sent from my iPhone 7 plus using Tapatalk Pro

 

[swags]

are you using a fuse tap?

 

[MustangFrank]

No fuse tap. Tonight I am going to be ordering a mictuning wiring harness off of Amazon. It looks to be a lot higher quality and will give me piece of mind for $11. I have learned a lot from this thank you guys for all the help

 

[Nissan4Life]

Can you post the wiring diagram. The relay main power should come from the battery. But the relay trigger, coming from the switch should come from an ignition hot wire (I used one from the inside kick panel). This way when you turn off the truck your lights turn off even if you have the switch on.

 

[whistler]

Not for much longer. "Federal government has pretty much killed mecuruy thermometers in the United States".
What is your point?

 

[Contra]

What was yours?
I thought we were just pointing out fun facts


Sent from my iPhone 7 plus using Tapatalk Pro

 

[whistler]

You told the original poster to buy mercury.
Not to demean him but if he questioned if it was ok to extend wire, he may have tried to buy mercury.

 

[teecro]

You told the original poster to buy mercury.
Not to demean him but if he questioned if it was ok to extend wire, he may have tried to buy mercury.

And how would one extend said wire with "quick silver" too? >

 

[mtyler11]

All good advice. ...you can find ampacity charts everywhere, and to understand how many amps you will have going through a wire you simply divide the wattage by the volts.

That light bar looks great by the way. Very clean look.

At this time I have soldiered additional wiring on with good results. I was able to extend the wires and tuck them away.

JamesInTahoe, I don’t disagree with what you say. Do you know which wire would be best to tap into, or how can I find it?

Right now I am happy with my results and the way it looks but I am not interested in this being a fire hazard. If anyone else out there has suggestions please let me know

to get things back on track... here's an "ampacity" (?) chart...

I'm guessing based on hte ad, they used 18AWG wire... I'd suggest 14AWG replacing the entire length. Also a good quality crimp is 'just as good' as a solder connection... Without going down the rabbit hole, if you are not a High Res soldering guru a good crimp tool will give you a solid electrical connection and won't have the concerns with fractured soldered connections...

 

[IAm_Not_Lost]

to get things back on track... here's an "ampacity" (?) chart...

Yep. Ampacity is ampere capacity. 14 gauge is what i've used for basic lights in my truck, small enough and flexible enough to run long distance, but still able to handle enough amperage for most LED lights.

 

[swags]

Remember to ground to the body, I grounded to the battery terminal and had terrible batter/charging issues.