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Wiring led bar to high beam?

Discussion in '1st Gen. Tacomas (1995-2004)' started by NightProwler, Dec 3, 2013.

  1. Dec 3, 2013 at 2:40 PM
    #1
    NightProwler

    NightProwler [OP] Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Nov 12, 2013
    Member:
    #116470
    Messages:
    3,452
    Gender:
    Male
    First Name:
    Harlan
    Maricopa, Az
    Vehicle:
    '01 Prerunner, '16 trd4x4, '09 R1, '03 cbr954rr, '03 rc51
    I recently had my led bars wired into my H4 wiring one the passenger side as it is now unused since I installed projectors. But I realized I may have had them wired in wrong. I believe I had the negative wired into either the low beam or high beam, probly low beam. And the positive wired into the high beam. And the ground was not used. I didn't realize until I just unplugged it to install a new harness with a relay. Well when I wired in the relay (yes properly) I used the activator wire to the relay for the h4 plug. But it seems there is power coming out of the factory H4 wire harness on both the low beam AND high beam when on low beam. Then when I turn on high beam I lose power from the high beam side. I even disconnected everything and tried a regular H4 bulb and it now does the same thing. What's weird is with the projectors and hid kit, it all works fine. So idk if I just have the wrong relay and had the high and low side swapped or if I have a bad stock H4 relay in the fuse box or what.. Maybe even a bad wire in the factory harness or something, idk. The new harness I have has a 40 amp relay.. one side of the plug tries to activate it but not enough power on high beams. I can hear it click but it doesn't activate. On the other side it does activate.
    Hopefully I'm not confusing you. Better way to put it, I hooked up a test light and on low beams, the test light comes on, on both sides of the H4 plug for low and high beam. Except one side has more power than the other. When I turn on high beams, I lose power to one side.
    So when I turn the lights on now, the led bars are on and go off on high beams. Also note that I did wire them correctly by putting negative into the ground side and positive into high beam side. Unless I got low and high beam backwards but again the low beam has constant power on both low and high. Is this normal?
    If you still aren't sure what I'm explaining maybe I'll just ask how you would wire led bars into the factory wiring using a relay harness and the activator wire into the H4 plug to make them turn on when high beams are activated...
     
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2013
  2. Dec 4, 2013 at 9:54 AM
    #2
    NightProwler

    NightProwler [OP] Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Nov 12, 2013
    Member:
    #116470
    Messages:
    3,452
    Gender:
    Male
    First Name:
    Harlan
    Maricopa, Az
    Vehicle:
    '01 Prerunner, '16 trd4x4, '09 R1, '03 cbr954rr, '03 rc51
    Ok so I think I was wrong with understanding which wires were which in the h4 plug. I'll go out and retest it, but if I'm thinking correctly, it would mean I have power going through the ground. Hmm.. I wonder if the wires melted from having the led bars wired directly to the h4 wiring instead of using a relay for direct power from battery?

    EDIT: I figured it out. Just learned I have negatively switched wiring for high beam. I bought new relay and ran my own wiring. I wired 30 to battery, 85 to low beam on H4 plug, 86 to high beam, 87 to the postitve on led bar and grounded the negative on led bar. Works great. Think they are even brighter now too! Before I wired the led bar directly into the H4 plug and it might not've been getting full power through the factory wiring. But once I added the relay I got with the led bar from china it only had one activation wire for the relay which was designed for a toggle switch. So all good with the new relay!
     
    Last edited: Dec 5, 2013

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