Add-A-Fuse

Hey guys quick electrical/lighting Question...

Tomorrow I'm gonna be finally installing my Blue Sea aux fuse panel and rewiring all my lighting all nice and purty. I have 2 hella 700's HID, 2 rear LED dust lights (pods) and a 20" double row LED bar and 2 6.5" LED bars (all three up front tied together)...I'm gonna be running relays for all of them just to be safe, and making all connections nice and weather tight and purty .

My question is, when I run the wiring for the switches, can I combine all three switches power to an add a fuse under the dash, and which fuse should I add to? I'm not exactly sure on the total amp draw on it all...but if i'm running relays for them all, I can't imagine it would be THAT much. I think i read 2 amps to power relays, somewhere.

Is it even safe to just splice all three switches together into one Add a Fuse, or would I be better off just running them all through to my fuse box?

 

Sub'd, good question, need power to switches for lit up switches?

 

yes.

 

Alright, I previously installed LEDs in my interior and used an add-a-fuse/mini circuit tap to power them and put them through a 2 position non-lit switch. This worked fine. When j install some lit up switches for bed lights, reverse lights, rock lights, etc. I plan to use this same wire tap. My reasoning is that its only powering the LED in the switch, so it should be perfectly fine

 

That's what I was thinking too...but I feel like there's more power being used to activate the relay...not just the little power leak from a teeny LED in the switch...otherwise I can probably just tap into that audio aux power fuse and just combine all three switches into one tap and be fine....

hopefully someone knowledgeable chimes in soon lol!

 

For my OTRATTW switches I used an add a fuse (2amp fuse) from the ignition fuse to light the led in the switches.

Make sure you test the fuse box to find the power in and orient your add a fuse accordingly.

The relay doesn't draw much power, just enough to activate the trigger magnet.
Not sure how much, but not too much. I typically run a 2 amp in line fuse on the trigger line just to be safe.

 

Yea these are from Oznium.com I'm guessing I should be fine doing an Add a Fuse to the audio fuse and just adding another 7.5 amp fuse to it...I don't see them pulling more than that

 

Yeah, true, I didn't think about the relay being powered off the switch. IIRC, I read a thread about wiring reverse lights and they did the fuse tap method like said. I'll try and look it up and reread, but like said above, the magnets don't suck up too much juice

 

You see any problem with putting the add-a-fuse into the tails circuit instead of the stereo circuit? Is there a reason to using the stereo circuit?

 

'Tails' Circuit? Not familiar with that one...I just picked the 7.5 amp audio/aux circuit, (28 I believe) because I saw someone else use it for a GPS hook up. figured it was a good circuit to use as if something goes wrong, I just lose power windows/mirrors and the radio dies lol.

 

Ohh, hmm good point, haha, the tails circuit carries the fuse for taillight running light when lights are on(brakes use negligible), so that wouldn't be good to go out. I may switch it later. And aren't you not supposed to go above 10 amps combined on on the tap or is it 10 amp fuse max for each slot?

 

I think 10 amp fuse max per slot. The one I saw added a 10 amp to the existing 7.5 amp for the audio/aux slot for his GPS that he hardlined.

 

running your switches from one power source would work fine, assuming the add a circuits wiring would be of sufficient size. this is assuming all the relays are being energized at the same time. remember to test which slot in that add a circuit is for the original fuse and which is for the switches, and if the fuse for the switches pops, all your gadgets powered off that will be dead. auxillary lighting wouldnt be an issue really since its nothing critical, just a PITA

 

Yea, that's why I'm using the aux lighting one. So if I do happen to be running all my lights at once (happens like twice a year lol) and it pops the fuse, I won't lose anything of important and possibly crash. Would rather kill my power windows and raiod and such than brake lights or something lol.


Now then...I should be able to run them one at a time as well right? If I energize one relay but have the switches all tied into one fuse, it won't energize them all will it? There shouldn't be any back loop power or something?

 

i think you may misunderstand a little. if for some reason you pop the fuse feeding your switches, only your added LED bars and whatever else is on those switches will be dead. the circuit that your tapping from (believe you said power windows) will be unaffected. this is where testing the add a circuit to verify which fuse slot controls the lead off the end comes into play.

yes, you could activate the switches one at a time or all together. (also depends on wiring after the relays but i would assume there all separate and wired in parallel.

 

let me get this straight.

your adding a fuse box to power all this accessory lighting. the main power for these relays your running your lights off is coming from this secondary fuse box. the trigger power for these relays is going to come from an add a circuit under the dash inside the cab for easy accessibility and the 3 switches are all tied into the one add a circuit.

switch A powers relay A which powers 2 hellas
switch B powers relay B which powers 2 LED dust pods
switch C powers relay C which powers a 20" and 2 6.5" LED Bars

correct?

if yes, this would work fine but i would be cautious not to overload relay C, do a calculation or a real world amp draw on the lights.

use large enough wire throughout the whole system

do a calculation or real world amp draw on the relay's electromagnet circuit (trigger circuit) and add A B C together and choose your next larger fuse to prevent nuisance tripping.

 

Yes. Does that sound ok? The only other option I could think of was to run power from the switches to extra terminals on the aux fuse box...was trying to keep down on the number of wires going everywhere. A friend mentioned an AAF could be the way to go, and further mentioned I could just tie all three switches together into one AAF.

This is pretty much exactly what I'm doing, except no circuit breaker(yet).

 

yes, the way i stated before would probably be the easiest. not sure what an aaf is. and i edited my post as u posted this last one. just an FYI

 

thats a clean set up. good job to who ever that is.

 

Sounds good, I think off the top of my head I was running around 12 amps or so for relay C, and had a 15 amp in line fuse on 14g wire, only ran for about 2-3 feet from the light to the battery. I was just looking at a fuse diagram for our trucks and might use a different fuse to power the switches. I think a 7.5 amp fuse should be sufficient to power the switches, so adding to the rear window power fuse of 10 amps( i think off the top of my head) would work well.

PS I really hate electrical work lol. If I had the cash at the moment I would just pay someone to do it. I need my current monies for my move to NorCal, and I have most of the next two days free to do as I want, so I might as well re-wire all my aux lighting