[TheOtherLeft]

Hiya all,

I'm looking at wiring in some DRLs as I think it adds to visibility/safety.

Now the ADRs state that DRLs turn on with the Ignition and turn off when the headlights turn on.

With the convoluted negative switching I'm a little confused as to how the lowbeam headlight trigger turns off the DRL.

Does this wiring diagram make sense?



Thanks.

[atari4x4]

for the love of jesus... don't do it.

IMO the only DRL's that look good are factory fitted, the rest just look like a crap afterthought.

why not just drive around with your headlights on, if you're that concerned about being seen

[Trypt]

i like the reflectors that have the halo ring around them. but there not all that cheap

[atari4x4]

Trypt wrote:

i like the reflectors that have the halo ring around them. but there not all that cheap

again, cool if factory fitted to a BMW....

[TheOtherLeft]

Fellas, whether you find DIY DRLs something that makes baby jesus cry is irrelevant. In my mind DRLs are for safety. I prefer not to use my headlights as I'll forget to switch them on, plus LEDs will last a lot longer then halogens.

[royce]

whats the current draw on the DRL's? you could probably run them direct from an ignition feed and not worry about the left hand relay

The right hand relay will hut them off on low beam only, they will be on with high beam and park lights though, and you need to hook up to terminal 87A on your normally closed relay, not 87

I would consider hooking the relay that turns them off up to your park light circuit, positive switch and will turn off with both beams

[Trypt]

atari4x4 wrote:

Trypt wrote:

i like the reflectors that have the halo ring around them. but there not all that cheap

again, cool if factory fitted to a BMW....

How about a hyundai

[TheOtherLeft]

royce wrote:

whats the current draw on the DRL's? you could probably run them direct from an ignition feed and not worry about the left hand relay

The right hand relay will hut them off on low beam only, they will be on with high beam and park lights though, and you need to hook up to terminal 87A on your normally closed relay, not 87

I would consider hooking the relay that turns them off up to your park light circuit, positive switch and will turn off with both beams

Thanks Royce.

I'm looking at using 6W DRLs, so 0.5A draw. Can the IGN circuit handle that?

I'm not quite following what you mean with respect to rewiring the second relay. I thought about using my parker circuit as an OFF trigger but I want the DRLs to turn on whenever my IGN is on but independent of my parkers. Maybe I'll reconsider this if it's too hard not to.

Is the Parker circuit positive switch? I thought it was negative.

[BlueSuzy]

Drive with headlights on. Not out of place driving out country way.

Hell, why dont you drive with highbeams on 24hr like some people round here!

Moreons.

[got_bar_work]

I would just hook them to the ign wire and leave them on all the time
Y do they need to turn off when the lights come on
Just call them parkers

[atari4x4]

it wasn't cool when volvo did it all those years ago & it's still not cool.

[TheOtherLeft]

got_bar_work wrote:

I would just hook them to the ign wire and leave them on all the time
Y do they need to turn off when the lights come on

You can get pinged for having DRLs on with the low/highbeam headlights.

[BlueSuzy]

Would be in the same boat as driving with driving/fog lights at a clear night, or hibeams on passing cars, or full sick glow neons.

"dazzling light"

Been done before with neons

[got_bar_work]

Wouldnt 6 watt be small enough to count as a parker

[royce]

TheOtherLeft wrote:

royce wrote:

whats the current draw on the DRL's? you could probably run them direct from an ignition feed and not worry about the left hand relay

The right hand relay will hut them off on low beam only, they will be on with high beam and park lights though, and you need to hook up to terminal 87A on your normally closed relay, not 87

I would consider hooking the relay that turns them off up to your park light circuit, positive switch and will turn off with both beams

Thanks Royce.

I'm looking at using 6W DRLs, so 0.5A draw. Can the IGN circuit handle that?

I'm not quite following what you mean with respect to rewiring the second relay. I thought about using my parker circuit as an OFF trigger but I want the DRLs to turn on whenever my IGN is on but independent of my parkers. Maybe I'll reconsider this if it's too hard not to.

Is the Parker circuit positive switch? I thought it was negative.

0.5 amp will be no problems, you could even power them from the windscreen washer power circuit to get easy underbonnet power

yes, NC relay goes between pin 30 and 87a, when the coil is energised (like when you turn the parkers on) it will break the contact and turn the DRL off

[MightGetDirty]

Another horrible gravedig I know.. but before deciding to search and stumble across this thread, I drafted up this monstrosity:

Attachment:

GVDRLWiring.jpg

After reading through a little bit I have a few questions and if possible, request for more help haha..

• I understand relays are meant to be to allow a low power/load source to switch on a high power one. Is the proper tail light circuit considered a low-enough power/amps to use as the sensing circuit for my override relay without damaging it or is it still better to take from the BCM like I've currently sketched? What's generally considered "too high power"?
• Do I have to physically make a break in the "RED/BLU" wire (similar to what I've sketched for Pos/DRL Relay) for my override relay to work, or will it function with the ring circuit-like arrangement that I've got now?
• Is there any way I can reduce the amount of freakin relays I need to achieve the same function as what I want here? I'm feeling three is a lot to add on but I don't know how else to do it based on what little I know.

Some context: I've gotten dual indicator & DRL LEDs for my front position/parker lights and indicators. The indicator side of things is straightforward. For the DRL side it's the same as above (need them to turn off when parkers/headlights turn on per law) BUT with the added complexity of the position lights needing to stay on a.k.a. keep functioning as per normal, PLUS the convenience of a dash switch to disable DRL function altogether...

The idea is to function similar to how some modern cars with DRL either dim or turn off some of their LEDs to function as parkers when headlights are turned on. Totally not because I like to torture myself.

[Slug]

Don’t forget the DRL must be ADR compliant otherwise your just wasting your time
As others have said just run with your headlights and put an off relay to the headlight power to turn them off without ignition
Don’t connect the relay to your Parker loom so they still work ign off

[fordem]

You can do DRLs with a single relay, provided it has a normally closed contact, like a "bosch style", five pin relay.

Wire the DRLs to ignition power via the normally closed contacts (which means they turn on when the ignition is switched on), and wire the relay coil to the park/side light circuit, when the park/side lights are switched on, the relay energizes, opening the normally closed contacts and the DRLs will go off.

If you want to be able to disable the DRL function you can simply add a switch between the ignition power and the relay contacts.

With the circuit described above, the DRLs will come on when the ignition is switched on and go off when the side/park lights come on.

One last thing, I'm not certain what the ADRs say about DRLs and turn signals, BUT, some jurisdictions require that the if the DRL & turn signal share a common housing, which is what your description sounds like, that the DRL goes off when the turn signal is on, so if right turn signal is in use, the right DRL goes off and the left stays on, and vice-versa of course.

[MightGetDirty]

Ok so what I am interpreting here is that I'm being too scared about loads through the coil side of the relays damaging them, and I can wire directly up to the light circuits themselves to operate the relay switches. That should remove a some of the complexity that I'm adding.

I spent some time after your replies to do a bit of a deeper dive into the ADRs (as I only referred to an older edition before) and the 3rd Ed. ADRs appear to largely be a copy of the UN Regulations No. 48, with some tacked-on clauses for various exceptions.

From what I can tell, my lighting plans (different/multifunction bulbs) will be compliant, and the oem headlamp unit is technically compliant for DRL bulbs... One can argue on a few points on that one.. From what I see though, the main thing is I'm not allowed to have a simple on/off switch to turn off the DRLs whenever I want - I either install them and have them "active" all the time, or I need some complicated computer-controlled system where it can be turned off manually, but once you start moving more than 20 or 30kmph it turns on again automatically.

..So I've got to do a few sketch updates:

• ditch the switch on the dash
• wire power to ignition instead of acc.
• relay sense coil can wire to a light circuit instead of at the loom