Ken the electrical guy Q n A

Thank you for the detailed response. I'm not planning on running everything at once lol, and only a few times a year will I have it fully loaded. Actually, most of the components will be turned on independently, compared to all at once. I'd like to start with a Group 27 AGM battery before upgrading the alternator. The reason for not wanting the dual battery is because the SSO Slimline Winch Bumper up front, and I have the ARB Dual compressor and Tank in the void in front of the passenger side. I'll definitely run everything by my brother (the electrician) as he is great with this stuff! Here's a quick breakdown:


Thanks again for the help!

Part list is here for reference.

 

I like how you used the outline of the truck with the boxes. Makes my brain happy lol. You could always mount the secondary battery in the back. That’s probably where mine will end up. I would start planning wire sizes and runs. Also thinking about how to distribute power. Don’t be that guy that has 10 wires going to the battery terminal lol. They make some nice terminals and busbars. If you want to make a Bitchen electrical system the way it looks and functions tend to run parallel (pun intended) to each other.

 

Ok so I actually have a few options on how you can do this. You’ll be able to pick and choose how you want it done. I’m currently trying to determine if the limit switches are either mechanical contact (circuit bridging) or if they break the circuit. This will change the approach to how to wire either the relay or if you want to run LEDs as position indicators.
I’ve been actively trying to research but haven’t come up with anything. If you have access to a multi meter and can get to either yours or an actuator we can do some simple tests to determine which they are.

 

I will mess with it today and see if they make ground or break it.

 

Might be a tough one to diagnose by description but here goes...

I picked up an 02 double cab 6 months ago and noticed that the head lights are alway on when the ignition is on. The truck was in a collision right before I bought it (rear ended someone). The whole front clip was replaced and I’m guessing a corner was cut somewhere during that work.

To elaborate, they are on on the “-“ and on setting. The only way I can turn them off is with the stalk set to “OFF” but that turns everything off. When switching from the “-“ setting to on, I see them get just a little brighter.

I hear a clicking sound from the glove box area when I switch from the “-” setting to “ON“, sounds very similar to a relay clicking on. I don’t remember hearing any sound like that in from that area in my 03 Prerunner, but can’t be sure. I can’t tell any obvious areas to start troubleshooting like electrical tape balls, frayed wires, etc. Any ideas?

 

Is it still necessary to ground the switch if the accessory is grounded? *noob question*

 

Ok if you can remove it from the diff it would be easier. See if you can get some test leads and move the fork to either the locked or unlocked position. Test each limit switch pins for ground. Cycle it to the respective opposite position and retest. If you can get me some results from that ill send you some diagrams

 

Try to imagen a road that went in a 360 degree circle. Your car is the electricity. Now at a certain point in this road we put a bridge in. A switch is just a bridge, when we raise the bridge (open the switch) the car (electricity) can no long flow along the road. When we lower the bridge the car can continue to flow. When it comes to using switches we will either be controlling the ground or the power. You are letting the circuit flow via a switch on the ground side or the positive side. If you have a switch that has 3 pins however there will be a dedicated ground pin. Most commonly this pin is the ground for an LED indicator on the switch. It has nothing to do with the actually flow of electricity to your accessory. I hope this helps. I’m glad you asked! Keep asking questions!

 

Ok so.
When fork is in 2wd position there is continuity between pins 4 and 6 only.
When fork is moved to 4wd position there is continuity between pins 4 and 5. As well as pin 3. But I think that pin 3 is what tells cluster that ADD is in 4wd. And since I have lights in cluster running off my tcase switches I don't need pin 3.

 

And housing doesnt have to be grounded to get continuity. Just open and close switches inside of there.

 

Something like this will be very simple for us to figure out. Headlights are simple. You have a 3 wire system. You have...
At the connector that plugs into the headlight we have
12v highbeam
12v low beam
Ground shared by both high and low beam

Your headlights are powered in this way
You turn the switch by your steering wheel to the headlight on position. This sends a low amperage 12v signal to the relay. This powers the relay which sends your high current out to the connector mentioned above and in turns the bulb on. You can have either 1 or 2 relays to accomplish this.

So we have a switch, relay, connector, and bulb

If you have two relays one will be high beam and one will be low. It would seem your issue is with the circuit that controls the low beam.

the issue can be from a few things

1) the switch at the steering wheel is malfunctioning and sending the 12v signal tigger to the relay even though it’s not in the on position
2) the relay is locked into the on position. This can happen but is less common
3) the wiring was damaged and we are getting 12v from another source onto our trigger wire going to the relay or to the output wire to the bulb . This can happen if wires have been damaged and are close to one another.

If you have access to a multimeter here’s what you do

•Open the hood
•find the fuse box under the hood
•find the relay, there are two locking tabs that hold it in place.
•remove the relay and put your multimeter on ohms.
•put on test lead on the pin designated 30 and the other on the pin designated 87. You should get no reading or error or 0
•if you get a any value then the relay is stuck in the on position and is not good. Replace it.
•if you get the expected 0, error, no reading then we know the relay isn’t stuck on.

•make sure that the headlight switch is in the off position

•Now look at the socket where the relay was mounted. We need to test locations 85 and 86 for voltage. If the switch at the steering wheel is off then we should not see voltage at either position. If you do then your switch is the issue. You can get a used one or buy new.

•if you don’t see voltage then we know the switch and relay are both working as they should

• so this will lead us to the wiring. You have to take you multimeter and work along the wiring testing for voltage. If you can find connectors those are great because you can take them apart. Test for voltage and if you find voltage up to a certain point but not after then you know the issue is in between those two points. Then you can take the loom apart and find the damage and repair it.

I hope this helps and if you get stuck or what ever HMU and I’ll do it with you with my own truck so we’re looking at the Same thing

 

Damn talk about helpful! I’ll try and carve out some time this weekend doing the above and report back

 

sounds good buddy. I’m glad I can help

 

ok 10-4 Thanks for jumping on that

 

appreciate this quality reply. this is why i subscribed to this thread, just to watch and learn. good info about the duty cycle and rpms.

 

thanks bud I’m glad you’re enjoying

 

Thank you! It does have 3 prongs on it and it worked flipping the lights on/off without grounding it so i was just unsure if it was 100% necessary. Love reading through the other responses to other questions. Great detailed responses and you can really "dumb it down" so to say for us to understand.

 

I’m glad you’re enjoying the thread. It makes me happy that I’m doing something that others can enjoy and benefit from. I hope I didn’t insult you by my analogies lol. It’s just how my brain works.

 

Any more thoughts on wiring up an on/off switch for my add?

 

Yeah bud I just was waiting for my girl to come home today so I can use her colored pens lol. I wanted to make the diagram easier to read. It’s all black currently

I didn’t forget about you