Wiring problems with spotties
Submitted: Saturday, Feb 04, 2006 at 08:45
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Brian Bentley
Hi, I have 180mm night vision spotties fitted to my cruiser ute. I bought them last year from supercrap because i did not want to spend a great deal of cash on something i didnt use often and that had a chance of getting flogged.
I wired then up according to the wirng diagram last year when i bought them and after a while they stopped working.
I checked the fuse, it was melted along with the fuse holder, so i replaced the fuse.
Still didnt work. Replaced the relay and it worked.
Tryed the spotties about a week later, not working, and the fuse wasnt blown.
The original fuse and relay were 30 amp and that is what i replced them with but i am think of buying a heavier amp relay to see if that fixes the problem.
I dont want to keep buying relays everytime i want to use spotties!
What are your suggestions regarding this prolblem? Thanks in advance
Reply By: Wayne (NSW) - Saturday, Feb 04, 2006 at 09:13
Saturday, Feb 04, 2006 at 09:13
Brian,
If you are melting a 30amp fuse there is something wrong with the wiring. Replacing it with a bigger fuse or relay is not going to fix it, only cause a fire.
Start all over.
A wire from the + side of the battery through a 30amp fuse to the #30 on the relay.
A wire from the - side of the battery to the #86.
A wire from the active side of the hi- beam will go to #85.
Wires from #87 should go to the positive side of the
driving lights.
Check to see if the light are polarity sensitive, ie, the globes are earthed to the body of the lights or do they have two wires that have to be connected. If the - earth wire is mounted to the lights than the other wire must be +pos.
A switch must be placed in the wiring so that the
driving lights can be turned off when the hi-beam is on. I have run the - neg wire from the battery through the switch.
Wayne
AnswerID:
152883
Reply By: geocacher (djcache) - Saturday, Feb 04, 2006 at 17:37
Saturday, Feb 04, 2006 at 17:37
What sort of fuse holder? One of the older glass ones or blade fuses?
If the holder itself has melted there is a point of resistance that is getting way too hot. It doesn't take much resistance at 16-18 Amps to have a very hot spot in the circuit.
I'd doubt there's a dead short any where as a dead short would blow the fuse almost instantaneously and nothing would have time to get hot enough to start melting components around it.
I would suggest a change to a good quality blade fuse holder if it's not already blades. Something like 4mm dia wire and keep the runs short to maximise voltage to the filaments (therefore getting brigher lights). Keep the relay close to the lights and make the switching wire longer if necessary. Thicker is definately better. If the wirings any smaller than 4mm dia (and they did come from Supercrap - was the wiring included?) then it all needs to go in the bin.
The wiring from the low beam cct to the dash switch and back to the relay coil and the relay earth can be smaller as it's only carrying about an amp at best.
The wiring from the battery to the relay switched terminals and on to the spotties, then from the spotties to earth is the high current side of things.
Dave
AnswerID:
152971