I picked up a driving light set this week and when I went to install it, I had the damndest time getting them to work. Long story short, in troubleshooting the system, I realized the problem was the relay. What I want to know is, how important are they?

If I run the wiring straight through from the power source, through the toggle switch, to the lights, they work fine. I'm fusing it with the recommended fuse, do I really need the relay?

2/9/2008 2:38:31 PM

relays allow you to safely turn on high-powered (amperage) accessories. You should really run the relay. Turn on your fog lights and see how hot the switch gets. It's wire-melting hot.

A relay uses the signal from the closing of a low-amperage circuit to turn on the higher amerage one. i.e. the piddly amperage of switched circuit closing will make the high amp circuit (the one straight from your battery to the lights) close also. And "closing" means "completing the circuit" or "turning shit on"

2/9/2008 2:45:56 PM

Yeah, as soon as I posted this thread I finally found some worthwhile info elsewhere on the intarweb including some diagrams that might help.

Thanks anyway.

2/9/2008 2:49:51 PM

The switch should not get hot unless youre pulling retarded amounts of current.

How do you think the relay passes power more efficiently (in this case, doesnt get hot) than a low ohm switch?

2/9/2008 3:03:45 PM

Well, that I can't answer. What I do know is that the lights came with a relay, I figured they put it in there for a reason. The problem wound up being that the wiring diagram was wrong, once I figured it out based on this:



I re-wired it and got it working right away.

2/9/2008 3:13:24 PM

i hooked my lights up to my high beams (after installing HIDs they were disabled).

so im just using stock relays.

2/9/2008 3:29:54 PM

Yeah, I wanted mine separate. Once you take the keys out of my truck, the head lights automatically switch off, I wanted something I could keep on even if there was nothing in the ignition.

2/9/2008 4:11:05 PM

^ oh so u wanna drain you battery...lol, i know what you saying

2/9/2008 5:06:51 PM

^^if that's what you want, then hook your 85/86 (whichever is positive) straight to battery or to a source that has constant +12v

2/9/2008 6:25:14 PM