i keep on popping fuses on my driving lights!

i have 2 9" procomp 130 (130w) driving lights mounted on an n-fab light bar. i wired them myself and have a 40 amp relay and 2 30amp fuses and they keep on popping. i rewired everything and put in a new 40amp relay. that worked for a little while. i tured the key to "on" and flipped the switch and they worked. flipped them on again to make sure and they worked again. i go and drive up to the store about an hour later, i turn the truck on start driving and try and flip the lights on and the fuses blow AGAIN. what the heck is going on!?

any ideas anyone?


edit: mods move this to lighting section...forgot about that

 

Watts divided by volts gives you amps. 130x2=260w/13(lets keep it simple)=20 amps. When the truck is running, volts is higher, amp draw is lower. When truck is off, voltage drops and amps go up. Still, a single 30 amp fuse should be plenty. Where is the second 30 amp fuse wired?

Are you sure you have the relay wired right? A standard relay has terminal numbers 30, 87, 85, 86. 30 is positive power from the battery with a fuse inline. 87 is positive power out to your lights. 85 and 86 are the relay's coil. One side gets grounded, the other is positive power from your switch.

The switch should have positive power in, power out, and possibly a ground if it's lighted. Make sure you have the power in, power out connected as marked on the switch if you are using a lighted switch. There needs to be a fuse inline with the power in as well. 3 amps is plenty for activating a relay. If you don't fuse this wire and there is a short, you will blow the fuse on whatever factory circuit you have tapped, or burn up wiring if you have gone straight from the battery.

Any wire downstream from the 30 amp fuse needs to be capable of carrying 30 amps for safety. You could probably downsize the fuse to 25 amps and use 12 gauge wire. 10 gauge wire is best for making your lights as bright as possible and you need 10 gauge with a 30 amp fuse.

Make sure you don't have any pinched wires, and check all wiring connections.

I am guessing you have a pinched wire, since it is intermittent.

 

Alright will look for a pinched wire tomorrow...but both of the fuses are in the same spot. Wire from battery connects to the online fuse box. There is a fuse on the battery side then another on the relay side. Will show pics tomorrow. And the wire the harness kit came with is only 14ga wire I think if that changes anything. But they worked just fine before...

 

the wire that came with it is sufficient for that little of amperage. Even 12 ga is over kill not to mention 10ga. But it all depend on how long your wires are, but what you have is just fine. I bet it is just a short in the circuit (pinched wire).

 

If you have two fuses wired in series, that's redundant.

If you have two fuses wired in parallel, that's unsafe since it will allow 60amps to flow through your wire.

If you can pull one fuse out and the lights still work, then you have it wired parallel.

 

here is a pic of my fuses thing... battery side on left and relayt side on right




and could this be the pinched wire?

 

The fuse block you have is supposed to have the wire from the battery connected to the small stud sticking out in the middle (bottom of the pic).
Then, the other six terminals get connected to your aux circuits with one fuse each.

How is the fuse block secured? I hope you don't have that stud touching metal anywhere. That would cause your fuses to blow.

Simply having a twist in a wire like the blue one in the pic will not cause a short. You have to have contact with a metal surface (ground). I can't see what the black wire is doing. Is that the ground to your lights?

 

the black wire is going to the relay. so your saying that on that fuse block the power is suppost to be going into the screw on it??

i hate electricity...i thought that was just like a mounting screw or something lol. that the fuse block is velcro'd onto the top of the fuse box no metal touching anything...i was smart enough to do that lol

 

oh u mean in the 2nd pic? yeah one of those is ground and the other is power to the lights

 

I'm not sure exactly how you're wired up, but I agree, I think you have the fuse block wired wrong.

I'm using the same block for my accessories. All 6 fuses are in parrallel...The battery connects at the middle screw lug and the outputs are the outside blade lugs. Here you can see the large white wire going to the battery, a white output wire w/ the 20A fuse goes to my foglights and the 15A fuse with the black wire goes to my bed lights. I secured it to the fuse box with double sided automotive tape.

 

i dunno if i can feel any dumber...ill go buy the little connector thing tommorow. ill let yall know how that works

 

Note: if you add more accessories and fuses, make sure the wire coming from the battery can handle the sum of the loads. For example, I'm using a 10 gauge wire from the battery to handle the total load.

 

No prob, I'm an electrical engineer, so this stuff is natural for me...it's the mechanical stuff I need help with.

 

deffinatly might help a little wouldnt it?

are these wire connectors any good? they just seem cheap to me...

 

That is a wire splice. It allows you to tap an existing wire without cutting it. This is especially nice when you want to use an existing factory wire as a control wire for some aftermarket accessory. Keep an eye on my build, I'm in the process of installing running board lights and I used these splices to connect the lights to the cab dimmer so that the running lights turn on and off with the cab light (e.g. when you unlock the doors and/or open the doors). They are particularly useful if you aren't comfortable with soldering. Note: they cut the into the insolation and expose the wire, so after it is installed, I wouldn't recommend you remove it.

They are "cheap", but effective in certain situations. Zip tie the two wires together for some strain relief...that should help keep them secured.

 

are those better than say these?

just trying to figure out the best way to connect wires and not have issues down the road

 

YES!!! A splice is better than a wire nut. A wire nut takes 2 bare wire ends and twists them together. This requires that you have 2 cut wires, whereas the splice allows you to tap an existing wire without removing it or cutting it. I would recommend learning to solder or using an in-line crimp connector before using wire nuts! Just my opinion.

 

I'm actually working on putting together a "basic electronics" thread to help guys like you who may not be comfortable wiring. A lot of what I plan to discuss is what you're asking me...look for it in the future!

 

any time soon??

 

There is different size wire nuts so you can fit MORE than 2 wire in a wire nut. In my epiriane those crimp on splices suck ass.