[Moag]

royce wrote:

if your headlights are unplugged you will never see voltage on anything but the common terminal.

You will if you have the lights plugged in or there is still a relay in the circuit somewhere, this is why I also hate multimeters for working out live wires in cars, you look like you have power there but you are seeing it through a bulb or relay somewhere

YES that would do it!
The radio/CD that i have, uses power even when off for the memory.
The test light shows this as follows:
no light = no current
lights up but dim = something in circuit is using power but not much (radio memory)
lights up bright = powered.

I will test this by unplugging power to the radio after work.

Thanks again Royce.

[JrZook]

JrZook wrote:

Moag wrote:

Returned the above to stockish again. The headlight fuse doesn't go pop now.

Ripped the neat relayed headlight/spotlight loom out for rethink and maybe some extra mods.

Any bright ideas welcome.

So the lights work how they are supposed to in the stock configuration? IF so then your table doesn't make sense and maybe you are measuring it wrong somehow .

Another thing that you may just wanna clear up so it doesnt cause any confusion is your terminal name 'ground' change this to 'common' as it relates to the common connection within the headlight bulb.

With the measurements in the table common will always be ~12V so it should measure something like this if your headlights do actually work properly in your stock configuration.

Measured from the plug, both plugs Connected:

Common - Low - high
OFF: 12V - 12V - 12V

Low: 12V - 0V - 12V

High: 12V - 12V -0V

Pass/dip:12V -0V -0V

Hope it helps

Yea mixed my self up, as royce said you wont see any voltages on the others if the bulb isnt connected and they are not 'live' anymore through the bulb filament.

If you have a multi measure resistance with the plug disconnected and you should measure a few ohms from the low or high connection of the plug in reference to ground when they are 'on'.

[royce]

nah man you are thinking about it way to much!

radio, ignition switch, parkers, all that have nothing to do with the 2 switch wires on the headlights

I bet if you stick a test light onto those headlight wires that how power something will turn on, like another light relay or dash warning light or something

[whincup]

Moag wrote:

i just relayed my headlights this afternoon, and a big difference!... only problem i had, was following this diagram, the high beam was on when headlights were meant to be, and headlights when high beam was meant to be. easy fix, just switched the original wires around, but i think my car must be retarded...

[royce]

in the pic the original plug is looking from teh socket side, the new ones are looking from the wire side

[whincup]

yeah i went off the wire color though, not which way i was looking at the plugs... i think either way, it works now

[Moag]

Just got back from me nights work but managed to work things out before i left.
In short the headlight fuse was blowing because the high beam relay was f@#$ed between 85 and 87 which in turn f#$%ed the 10 amp spotlight toggle switch or other way round.

Hooked it up as in above diagram and woo hoo lights...............
only problem was high was low and low was high.

simple quick fix was, swap pass and drive at the plug and leave common as it was........all good.

Now all i need is to get a new spotlight switch, as i just bypassed it to see if it worked, then pulled its fuse to disable it.

The stock lights are now as bright if not brighter than the new cruiser with 1500k on the clock i drove to Warman tonight in.

Apologises for any grief I've caused (moag bad) and a big thankyou to all that helped.

[Moag]

All is in - with fuses, spotlight switch and wires made neat and protected.
Works perfectly.

Re did the drawing of what I finished up doing,
to make it as clear as possible for all

Hope this helps!!!

[royce]

does your switch stay lit up all the time?

[Moag]

Yes if l leave the spotlight one.

Is there a way around this Royce?

[royce]

hook the switch earth to pin 85

[Moag]

Cheers, ill give it a go.
one = on
Thanks

[royce]

for giggles, stick supply on the acc terminal and the lead to the relay to ground on teh switch, leave the ground off

there is a combination that works with 2 wires and switches, its wrong but I dont think anything catches fire

[truongski]

Hi guys,

Just a few questions if you don't mind answering.

1. I'm looking at doing this upgrade this evening, but I found a discrepancy with Royce's drawing and Moag's drawing. On Royce's one, the common or ground on the OEM plug goes to 85 on the relays. However on Moag's drawing, they go to 86. Which one is correct? Does it matter?

PS - che_guitarras's drawing is the same as Royce's (common is to 85 pin on relay)

2. When I tap into the OEM headlight loom, do I just strip the wire back and solder in new wire, then cover with heat shrink/electrical tape or can I use a insulated blade terminal and plug into the original loom?

Cheers

[royce]

as long as you arent using diode protected relays it wont matter on pin 85 or 86, from memory using diode protected relays pin 86 is the positive side (make it easy dont use diode protected relays)

to tap in you can do either, I like to make it so if something fails you can unplug it all and revert to teh stock system so leave teh original plugs in place

[truongski]

royce wrote:

as long as you arent using diode protected relays it wont matter on pin 85 or 86, from memory using diode protected relays pin 86 is the positive side (make it easy dont use diode protected relays)

to tap in you can do either, I like to make it so if something fails you can unplug it all and revert to teh stock system so leave teh original plugs in place

Cheers Royce.

[Scrawny]

royce wrote:

Scrawn wrote:

royce wrote:

You could also tap pin 86 from pin 30 on each relay so you no longer have to worry about teh stock power supply at all, I have not tried this before but will on the looms I make

This is what I do, much neater IMO

have you ever come across anything that switches earth for high and low but positive to turn the lights on? I am sure some Toyotas did it

I meant to reply to this earlier

I've not come across this before.

[royce]

its ok we understand

[Moag]

Thanks Royce, the light on the spotlight goes off now. Totally cool.

Yes your relay will work if power is to 85 or 86, just run some wire from these to the positive and negative terminals of your battery and feel and listen for the click.

the new one that i got had no click and the thin wires started to heat, accompanied by a burning electronic smell.

Fixed the diagram with the spotlight switch the way it should be.
in this drawing 85 is the negative side and 86 is the positive side.

[truongski]

Where do you earth the new headlight plugs?

[royce]

jeebus you sure specced up some fat wire!

if you are interested, set your meter to read volts, bang the black lead on the positve battery terminal and the red lead on the high beam pin in the new headlight plug and turn the high beam on, what it reads is the voltage drop (you should see bugger all there) then move them to the negative terminal and the ground pin in the plug

trugonski, earth is where looks solid, there are some 6mm bolts in the engine bay or you could run cable back to the battery

[truongski]

royce wrote:

jeebus you sure specced up some fat wire!

if you are interested, set your meter to read volts, bang the black lead on the positve battery terminal and the red lead on the high beam pin in the new headlight plug and turn the high beam on, what it reads is the voltage drop (you should see bugger all there) then move them to the negative terminal and the ground pin in the plug

trugonski, earth is where looks solid, there are some 6mm bolts in the engine bay or you could run cable back to the battery

Awesome. Thanks mate.

[Moag]

Edit: Yeh a bit of overkill on the wire thickness
but it was what i had from another solar project.
Love that heavy wire though, nearly no voltage drop.
If your interested I can now use a 3 Amp fuse in place of the 15amp headlight
fuse on the stock side.

[whincup]

Moag wrote:

3 Amp fuse in place of the 15amp headlight
fuse on the stock side.

Thats something i didnt think of... how many amps do the relays use? i'll probably put a 5 amp fuse in place... also, i used 25 amp wire since thats what i had lying around, that should run 100W bulbs fine with minimal voltage drop shouldnt it? i know that its exactly 3 metres of wire from the relay to the LHS headlight...

truongski wrote:

Where do you earth the new headlight plugs?

got a picture of where i earthed it, seems to work fine for me

[Moag]

Yep the relay coils need fuck all power to flip the switch. 3amp was the smallest i had, - i will try to get some smaller ones to see how low it will go..
Just because its cool to know. 5amp is "safe as" for a circuit designed for 15amps.

I will let you do the calculations for voltage drop.
A useful pdf to help.........http://www.rpc.com.au/products/efn/efn133.pdf

[whincup]

Moag wrote:

Yep the relay coils need fuck all power to flip the switch. 3amp was the smallest i had, - i will try to get some smaller ones to see how low it will go..
Just because its cool to know. 5amp is "safe as" for a circuit designed for 15amps.

I will let you do the calculations for voltage drop.
A useful pdf to help.........http://www.rpc.com.au/products/efn/efn133.pdf

that is a great link, ive saved it since i plan on rewiring quite a few things so will definitely reuse that formula. helps that i still have my old $180 scientific-looking calculator from school, dont have to re-enter the numbers each time, just adjust the values for the variables.

whats considered good/average in regards to voltage drop to headlights?

[Moag]

No problem......have a look around the rpc site there's heaps of useful info there.

Don't really know about the best for voltage drop though.. may be a compromise between bright burning globes and life of globes.

Edit: found another useful link which may answer your question and others
Relays, negative switched headlight ,voltage drops, and how this effects brightness

It's a bit of a read but good info

[royce]

Moag wrote:

Yep the relay coils need fuck all power to flip the switch. 3amp was the smallest i had, - i will try to get some smaller ones to see how low it will go..
Just because its cool to know. 5amp is "safe as" for a circuit designed for 15amps.

I will let you do the calculations for voltage drop.
A useful pdf to help.........http://www.rpc.com.au/products/efn/efn133.pdf

ive already got that formula saved in a spreadsheet (in 4 blocks to account for each wire section) so I can just bang different variables in

[Moag]

This may seem a bit wacky
But i think it would be good to be able to turn my highbeam off on the backtracks and just have my spotlight on.
But still be able to dip down to low beam if needed.
Being a LED spotlight that doesn't draw much power compared to me headlights - it would give charging system a bit of a break.

this is what I came up with!!
Do you think it will work?

[royce]

I dont think its excellent but as of yet dont have any better ideas

I guess you could rig a two way switch , one side gives you led on high beam, the other way just turns it on?