Spotlight wiring woes...

[narked]

Yesterday Disco Matt kindly came over to Ponterwyd to give me a hand (read: do most of the work...) wiring up the spots on my roof bar.

A three way switch was used, to allow for: Off, On, On with Main Beam.

The 'Off' position works fine ;)

'On' is currently not operational as I've not run a switched 12v feed to it yet, need to track down a suitable wire to splice onto.

'On With Main Beam' is doing *something*. With the lights off, using the stalk to flash the main beams results in the spots flashing along with the headlights. Bingo! Turn the headlights on, switch to full beam, and the spots come on. However, switch back to dipped beam, and the spotlights remain on. Any ideas?

[Guardian.]

REALAY STICKING ON GEt a decent hella one as my rooflight used to get stuck on, put a good relay in and not had a problem.

[Evilgoat]

You are on or close to the capcity of the relay or theres is power comming fron somewhere else.

Buy a 100nF capacitor from Maplin, ceramic jobby, and put it accross the switched contacts. This 'quenches' the spark thats welding the contacts together.

[narked]

REALAY STICKING ON GEt a decent hella one as my rooflight used to get stuck on, put a good relay in and not had a problem.

Could be, but it's two relays, one for the outer pair, one for the inner, and both are remaining on, so seems a bit coincidental.

[wizard]

Have a look at this diagram.
Wire the main beam to switch in a relay as Mr guardian suggests.

http://www.wizardbilt.com/spotlight%20circuit%201.GIF


Or this one

http://www.wizardbilt.com/SPOTLIGHT%20CIRCUIT%202.jpg


Regards
wizard :twisted:

[karlo]

Clean and check the earth's on the headlamp plugs at the bulb, squeeze the terminals in the plug up slightly to get a better grip on the bulb.

Ask me how I know :roll:

[Disco Matt]

The other theory I was able to suggest was that the multi-function unit might have some bearing on this, as according to the wiring diagrams on the RAVE CD it has a connection to the dim/dip relay.

It completely puzzled me as I wired my spots in exactly the same way (just with all four together rather than a couple of pairs) and they work as intended - on with full beam if the extra switch is on, off with dipped beam.

[Evilgoat]

Actually Karlo has a good point. Check plugs and earths.

[Range Rover Blues]

Yes, it takes about 10.5 volts for a 12 volt relay to close, but less than 5 volts to hold it closed, so an earth leakeage caused by a faulty commmon earth on the bulb could be responsible.

If that is the case, you might find your dipped beam gets better too ;)

[karlo]

If that is the case, you might find your dipped beam gets better too ;)

Yes that is true, RRB  That's the first thing I noticed.

[narked]

Does seem like it could be an earth problem. With the headlights on dip beam, the main beam indicator light on the dash is dimly illuminated. The spots are also currently coming on with dipped beam. Could well be connected to the problem I've got with the driver's side headlight playing up. So hopefully fixing that will cure the spotlight issue.

[karlo]

Does seem like it could be an earth problem. With the headlights on dip beam, the main beam indicator light on the dash is dimly illuminated. The spots are also currently coming on with dipped beam. Could well be connected to the problem I've got with the driver's side headlight playing up. So hopefully fixing that will cure the spotlight issue.

Its the headlamp plugs on the back of the bulbs, mainly the earth's on them clean them and squeeze them up it will cure your problem, it will only take you 5 minutes to do they go all black and rusty.

You will find if you wiggle the plugs on the back of the bulbs with your lights on that dodgy light will come back on and the spots will go out.

[Range Rover Blues]

It's worth sorting soon as I've seen the plugs melt on headlight bulbs, not from the heat of the bulb but the heat generated in a dodgy joint.  Eventually it becomes a fire hazard.  Plus of course Halogen bulbs don't last as long if they are run below their designed voltage/temperature.

[andyhubbard]

I'll second RRB on that one,the other month when i fitted my spots i spent some time replacing the terminals and put new plastic plugs on and had no problems.

[karlo]

I'll second RRB on that one,the other month when i fitted my spots i spent some time replacing the terminals and put new plastic plugs on and had no problems.

I really have to do my plugs as they are tatered, another 'roundtuit' job  :roll:

[narked]

They've already got new plugs/connectors, as I've had the melting problem before. Originally I used a set of pre-wired H4 plugs off eBay, but the wire used was stupidly thin and they lasted all of a week, so I replaced them with seperate plugs and spade connectors from Lucas, along with decent rated cable. Will have a play around with them this afternoon once I get out of work.

Cheers for the advice.

[narked]

Just had a quick look during a lull in work, and it's definately an issue connected to the driver's side headlight. If I disconnect that headlight, all the problems disappear, the main beam indicator doesn't glow on dipped beam, and the spots turn on and off as they should. So if I get chance this afternoon I'll check over the wiring to that headlight.

Thanks again for the help.

[Range Rover Blues]

Also check the condition of the earth wire to that headlight and the terminal where it's grounded then, if you've already had problems with it.

[Evilgoat]

Also check the condition of the earth wire to that headlight and the terminal where it's grounded then, if you've already had problems with it.

Its not a big job to provide seperate earths for each light unit, LR used one point for both on mine, now each side has its own. My plugs are also somewhat frazzled. Will order new ones some day.

[Range Rover Blues]

The plugs are available form Vehicle Wiring Products but TBH the wire in them is a bit thinn for my liking :?

[narked]

Got mine from Lucas, seperate plastic plug, then spade connectors and whatever grade cable you choose. Think all together it cost me less than the ones I bough from eBay.

[narked]

Fixed! Turned out to be a bad connection on the earth from when I wired in the new H4 plugs. All now works as it should, and once again have full beam on both headlights ;)

[discowoman]

I wish the guy who had my disco before me had read this thread - cut and taped wires into the headlight lead - no fuse - no relay!!!
also I have a light bar coming - has anyone got a diagram on how to wire this so its either OFF ON or ON WITH BEAM ;) thanks

[Disco Matt]

That's exactly how I wired mine and narked and I wired his - start by wiring the bar itself (you need to wire them in parallel - not hard, just need to keep track of all the wiring). The bar on mine is earthed to one of the securing bolts via a ring terminal, the live feed comes into the roof and runs down the inside of the A pillar to the relay.

The relay is activated via the headlight main beam and an isolating switch. In your case you'll need a switch with three pins. The relay is connected to the centre pin, one outer one connects to the full beam wiring and the other to a fixed live. The headlight main beam feed on ours was a blue and white striped wire near the fusebox.

[narked]

Eventually my setup will also be changed, as when I get round to adding a few other auxillary bits in I'll be adding my own aux fuse/relay panel to keep everything neat. Only bit I need to finish for my spots though is to sort out a switched feed from the ignition, but that's simply a case of finding a suitable wire and splicing into it. I shall then have fully functional spots that can either be off, on, or on with main beam.