6x spotties wired

[nismo4x4]

6x spotties wired, overloaded on highbeam wire?

Hi guys,

Im looking at wiring an extra 4x 55w HID spotties to my roof rack since i do fair bit night bush driving i already have 2x 35w hid at front...i want to keep it legal so i have to wire it to the highbeam, just worries having 6x spotties would overload the factory highbeam wire...

thanks in advance

 

[camo.b]

Extra relay/s needed.activate the relays via the high beam wire and your good to go

 

[Jarone]

Most definitely would overload the high beam circuit lol. they will need a relay with the high beams and a nice thick power wire up to them which can then be split between the 4 lights

I'd recommend adding a switch for the top circuit as well so you can use the high beams seperately

 

[Old.Tony]

Don't worry about the high beam circuit. Your front driving lights should be powered through a relay anyway, and your roof lights should be as well.

Switch inside the cabin should have one pole connected to earth, one to a wire heading to pin 86 on a relay. Pin 85 of the relay should be connected to high beam (blue wire on the right hand head light). Pin 87 of the relay should connect to some heavy cable that heads up to the roof. Pin 30 of the cable should run to a fuse and then directly to battery.

Done this way:

* Load on the high beam circuit = only the relay's coil = a couple of milliamps
* Roof lights can be switched off completely to comply with road rules
* Roof lights can only be switched on with high beam
* Roof lights, cable and the car are protected by the fuse

"Heavy" cable depends on the power being used. I'm using 1.4mm diameter cable for my roof lights, total draw = about 7A (cable is rated for 60A). For 4x55W lights that's almost 20A in total, so I'd use something far heavier - 6mm (about 8Ga) cable.

 

[mitch92]

Tony, what CSA is your cable to the roof?

 

[bods]

Don't worry about the high beam circuit. Your front driving lights should be powered through a relay anyway, and your roof lights should be as well.

Switch inside the cabin should have one pole connected to earth, one to a wire heading to pin 86 on a relay. Pin 85 of the relay should be connected to high beam (blue wire on the right hand head light). Pin 87 of the relay should connect to some heavy cable that heads up to the roof. Pin 30 of the cable should run to a fuse and then directly to battery.

Done this way:

* Load on the high beam circuit = only the relay's coil = a couple of milliamps
* Roof lights can be switched off completely to comply with road rules
* Roof lights can only be switched on with high beam
* Roof lights, cable and the car are protected by the fuse

"Heavy" cable depends on the power being used. I'm using 1.4mm diameter cable for my roof lights, total draw = about 7A (cable is rated for 60A). For 4x55W lights that's almost 20A in total, so I'd use something far heavier - 6mm (about 8Ga) cable.

Just one thing to note, although they are 55w, they are hid so they draw a lot less power than an equivalent halogen globe. I have a 35w hid kit in the motorbike and measured the amp draw with the 10a measurement on a multimeter and it was less than one amp... (I think... Been a while now, I may have to do another measurement on the hids on the car an see what the draw is like..)

 

[Old.Tony]

Tony, what CSA is your cable to the roof?

I can go and measure it to be sure. I was told by the auto electrician that it's 60A cable and it's certainly large enough, but I didn't measure it myself. I might just do that so I can be sure - but I am pretty confident that it'll handle the 2x40W lights that are up there.

 

[mitch92]

It should.

People fall into the trap of "it's 60A cable", and so run say 40A through it to an anderson plug at rear for instance. Problem is that is a shitty thing to do and the voltage drop is dramatic.

 

[mitch92]

Also auto cable they tend to put
More current down which emphasises the fact even more.

For example 6mm2 cable with 40A over 10M ( not far off front to back depending on run) drops ~1.3 volts. That is 10% voltage drop considering normally when running it system voltage would be 13.2.

 

[Old.Tony]

That's oine misteak I'm not going to make in a hurry!

I just measured the cable roughly (don't have a vernier here, only a tape) and it's marginally under 3mm in conductor diameter, multistrand - I haven't counted the strands. I'll have to accurately measure it on the weekend. With just a few amps flowing through it I could probably have used speaker wire anyway, but I took both positive and negative up in a double-insulated cable set.

My rear power is supplied by much heavier cable (and I have 2 runs of both positive and negative) in 8Ga cable, so that's 4 cables in total).