Heated seat wiring help

Even if you find unused spots (I believe there are a few) on the fuse panel I would be hesitant to run anything of significant current (i.e. more than an amp or two) draw unless you know for certain what the wiring on that circuit/spot is rated for. If you are thinking of running the seat heater pads from one of these unused fuse locations honestly I would not risk it since the results could be a burned vehicle due to an electrical wiring overload. You can run the "control" signal for the relays from an unused fuse spot since the current draw will be very minimal.

 

I agree with this. Its very easy to burn a wire from being overloaded. And once 1 wire melts and a short happens, then your whole harness goes up.




Super heated seats!!

 

True makes sense

 

Too bad you're way up in Canada, or that Im way down here in Pa. Id be all about helping you out with installing those.

 

I'll have to try and find someone

 

So after checking over the fuses today I see that both the ignition and the cig power are 15 amp and separate. I am thinking I will just splice into both of these with the red power wire like we talked before and not try anything else too confusing. Will I blow my face off is the question or is it a final good idea?

 

Using the add a fuse if I can find one I will also add

 

As long as the heater isn't on while you try to start the truck. Both together will be above the rated fuse. When hooking up just make sure the battery is disconnected.

 

Thanks. I will 100% make sure they are not on when I start the truck. Is there a better option then with a higher rated fuse?

 

Ok so now that I re read this I think I get what your saying. I should take the red power wire from both sets of heaters all the way to the battery by themself. Then take the relay and re wire it so that one of the wires from both relays (need to figure out which one) is hooked to the power of the cig lighter. Is this correct? If so how to I figure out which one?

 

You can't increase the fuse size. Its rating is specific to protecting that wire from burning.

Close. You still need to run the heater wire through the relay. I'd have to get back to you about which one is which.

 

Oh ok, so the red goes to the relay, then to to battery? How do I connect them correctly and which ones

 

Use this diagram to determine what is what on your relay.

 

This is exactly how you would wire it.
Power from battery (which is what will eventually power heater) is pin 30.
Ground is pin 85.
Connection to cig or ignition is pin 86.
Directly to heater is pin 87.

 

OK so this red wire attached already is where the power from the battery has to go right? So I just take this one out and run from the battery to here? Is that what is called common?

 

I don't know if this was mentioned already....
My husband and I installed one heated seat in my 2007.
Don't know if it'll help....or not.

Here's a writeup
http://www.lieblweb.com/heatedseat.html

 

Yes thank you, I actually have this bookmarked already lol. I just cant seem to understand electrical anything. Like right now we are talking relays and I dont even know what they do yet lol. Once I finish pipefitting I am doing electrical for sure

 

The problem is without seeing it in person or a schematic, everything is just an assumption as to which wire is which in that harness and relay. That relay looks like an unorganized mess to me. In that writeup above they only show 1 red wire getting hooked up to a power source, which leads me to believe that the loose red wire is the power to both the heater and relay. Probably easier just to hook it up as you were going to do.

 

Running the seat heater power from the battery is the best option in my opinion. Yes, it will take longer to get it wired up but done correctly you don't run the risk of an electrical overload or blowing a fuse on a shared circuit. I wouldn't want to run the risk of blowing a fuse if the seat heaters share power with some other circuit nor would I have to have to remember to make sure the seat heaters are turned off before starting the truck.

If you do decide to tap into the driver side fuse panel using an add-a-fuse just be sure that you've inserted it correctly. The fuse that you add (for the seat heaters) MUST NOT work without the original fuse also installed into the add-a-fuse. If it does that you need to flip the add-a-fuse around. The reason for this is that the power for the added connection MUST pass through both the original fuse AND the added fuse (for your seat heaters) to protect the wiring between the battery and the fuse panel since that wiring is only rated for the original fuse.

 

Sounds good guys, I went to the hardware store today and looked at everything when its not wired and its so much easier to understand. I think I am going to consider completely re wiring it like you guys are suggesting and going from the battery. From what I understand I'll go from the battery to the relay, then to the heating pads. Then wire the relay to the fuse box into the cig lighter. Question though is can I hook both seats relays to the same cig lighter if the power is not involved? Because it will be much lower