Wiring Help - Off Road Lights

I read through DIY threads and am stumped. From what I can tell, I should be all set.

1.) Installed the lights on my bumper.
2.) Ran each of the lights to a common ground on frame.
3.) Ran power for the lights to a switch in the dash.
4.) Ran power to the switch from blue/white wire under the dash that's hooked to the ignition. This line has an inline fuse.

Hook the battery up, turn the ignition, flip the switch...nothing happens.

The line (blue/white) that I draw power from is 12V, but when the switch is flipped my multimeter reads .02V. The fuse looks good, the filament isn't broken. When connecting wires, I twisted the ends together, folded, then taped. I figured this would be as good as paying for little crimp connectors.

Did I do something wrong? Do I just need to check all my wires?

I'm pretty frustrated and in "time-out" right now, since I snapped at my gf when she asked what I wanted for dinner.

 

In reality you should be running a wire from the lights to a Relay and then power from the battery to the relay and then running a hot wire from the battery (or otehr tapped source) to a switch then relay. The relay will also need a ground.

It sounds to me like you are trying to pull power off the ignition wire to power the lights. Not a good idea, going to overload the circuit and probably start yourself a dandy fire.

 

what he said^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

I'll pick up a relay after work tomorrow. However, that's just an addition to the current circuit...guess I have a loose connection somewhere.

 

solder the connections if you are no going to use crimp on connectors....
make sure all grounds are good......

 

I took y'all's advice and picked up a relay. Also redid all of the wiring using crimps. I hooked everything back up and no luck.

I followed this DIY:
http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/technical-chat/6525-diy-wiring-after-market-lights.html

I measure 12V off the battery. 3V off my switch.

Everything is connected and no lights. The fuses are good and the lights are good (work if hooked to lead off battery). In the writeup, the guy hooks the ground of the lights to the relay input, the battery to the relay output, and grounds the + wire for the lights. That didn't work, so I tried connecting the battery to the relay (12V) input, lights + to the output, and grounded the lights. Measured 0V on the relay output.

Did I luck out and get a bad relay?

 

your ground, are you sure you're gettting good contact w/ the actual metal surface you're grounding to, and not just the paint?

 

What wire did you tap? It might be a ground activated circuit. Check out my electrical basics thread (link in sig) for more info.

Check your fuse again too...probably blown. Even if it looks ok, try replacing it anyway and see if that fixes it.

 

you need power from battery to relay...
ground to relay
ground to fogs
power from relay to fogs
acc wire to switch "if lighted then a ground too"
then wire from switch to relay
done

 

For the switch I tapped a random blue/white wire that reads 12V when ignition is on. it hooks into a black rectangle hanging right under the internal fusebox...

i want the lights to be tied to the ignition. is there a better spot/specific wire? how do i get to it or find it?

 

so you want your fogs "off road light" to come on when ever the car is started???

or
do you mean you want them to come on when ever you turn your lights on???/

 

This is a very dangerous practice because you don't know what that wire is and what its fusing is...particularly if you tried to power your lights directly off this wire. Even if you don't fry a wire and start a fire, you may fry a sensitive circuit or at least render it inoperative (such as the dashboard, computer, brake lights, etc). Ground activated circuits don't like having voltage injected backwards from the grounded end if tapped improperly.

My recommendation is to tap a wire off the power wire for a fog or headlight and run it through the firewall to the switch. Or if you want to power it independently, you can probably tap off of one of the 12V aux power sockets...easily done using a fuse tap.

 

Looks like you have a Gen 1. I have a gen 2, so can't give details. Find a fuse panel with an ACC circuit. In a Gen 2 there's one to the lower left of the steering column. Buy an "Add a circuit"- it's basically a fuse holder with an extra wire. Run the extra wire to your switch, then to a relay. Another wire from Batt to relay, then lights. The "add a circuit" if run off an ACC fuse will only allow the lights to come on when the key is in ACC or Run. The relay is basically a remote switch; the switch you flick only triggers the relay, which sends full BATT power to the lights, this draws almost no current at the switch= no fire.

 

Thanks for the help everyone! I'll see if I can wrap it up tomorrow.

 

Thanks for the replies. Everything worked out great! 1st mod (of many to come) is a success.