Auxiliary light help

Alright all - thought this would be easy but I may be wrong. Setting myself up for some "reverse" auxiliary lights. I say "reverse" because they are in the rear of the truck and will be used for reverse, but not all the time.

The plan is to have them wired for only activating by a switch, not when the truck goes into reverse. I may be missing something obvious...but bear with me...

Mounted the lights to the bumper, ran the wire to the driver side entry point, then to a switch under the radio. Run my power source from the battery, through the firewall to the same switch. The lights I have come with an inline fuse (harbor freight blue glow mini off-road lights).

I decided to go with a different switch than came with the lights, which has a led. So I ground the lights, ground the switch, connect the hot to the battery and to the switch, connect the wire from the lights to the switch, and am ready to go.

Flip the switch and I gut nothin. No light on the led, no light behind the truck. Check the grounds, all good. Check the wires, all good.

What gives??? Thought I had this one in the bag!

Appreciate any bodies input!

 

Sounds like one of the leads on the switch is out of order. Dig out the old multi meter and out in on a 20 volt DC scale.

First, check power to the switch from the wire you ran to the battery.

Second, if the lights you installed are not LED, switch your meter to check for continuity, and while one test lead is grounded, check your hot wire going to your lights, you should have continuity. If you don't, then you have a bad ground at the lights.

Third, if you have continuity from the hot leg going to the lights and ground, then again with the multimeter in a continuity mode, (btw, the switch should have been disconnected fully before these diagnostics) check between the connection points on the switch itself. Switch on = continuity, switch off = open circuit.

 

I'm not an electrical expert, but my gut says the problem is you need to power your lighted switch and use a relay to send power to the actual lights. I installed my fog lights (truck did not come with them/not pre-wired for them either) using this write-up:

http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/2nd-gen-tacomas/3990-non-oem-fog-light-install-anytime.html

Subsequently, i installed a set of Light Forces and a reverse aux (independent as you describe) using the same wiring scheme for both. For the Light Forces and reverse aux I used lighted Scion switches which fit the dash slots with a tiny bit of filing. Hope this helps ...

 

Thanks for the help guys. I'll try it out tonight and see what works. I thought that I might be missing a relay. I'll post back later tonight or tomorrow.

 

Beondwacko pretty much nailed the diagnostics. One other thing to check is if the inline fuse is between the battery and the switch, that the fuse is actually present and functioning.

If you aren't going to use a relay, just make sure your wire guage and switch are appropriate for the amount of current the lights draw as well.

 

Alright guys, thanks again for all the input. Turns out it was the switch I was using. I had an after market switch that couldn't handle the capacity apparently, because the s
Switch that came with the light works fine.

Love the stock switch loom so I'll be looking to see if I can get the same capacity out of something that looks stock.

Thanks again for the input, much appreciated!

 

These are the switches I used and who I ordered from. They've added the "rays" I guess, but the switches fit with only a slight bit of filing the tabs in the hole. Quite a bit cheaper than what I paid for my oem foglight push botton style IIRC. FWIW:
http://www.oznium.com/scion-switch-led

My installed switches: [/url]

 

and another thought, if you like the switch you have, relays aren't very expensive. Good luck.

 

Just placed an order from oznium for those same switches. Thanks for all the help guys.