zmadams

I have four auxiliary lights on the front of my truck wired up in such a way that they only come on when my aux light switch is supplied with 12 volt switched power to prevent me accidentally leaving them on and draining the battery.
I would like to be able to re-wire them in a way that they're only able to come on while the high beams are on.
My idea is to connect the wire that is currently hooked up to just regular 12 volt switched power up to the wire that is hot only when my high beams are on.
Would this work? If so where is the high beam wire?
Thank you in advance.

homer

I've done this, I'll just have to find the high beam wire I tied into again. I think I tied in at the relay's in the main fuse box.

However! I wouldn't tie directly into that wire... you may overload it and blow the fuse losing your high beams + aux lights. Have you used a relay before? I would go that route... I can draw it up for you if you like.


I've controlled mine from inside the cab however mine are the factory fog lights. Your case is different.... Again, I recommend a relay (easy to hookup) so that you don't pop your high beam fuse but you can do all of this under the hood very easily.


If you use a relay, you can use the right side headlamp connector wiring as it's close to your battery anyways so your runs for all of this will be shorter (see attached).

homer

Don't mind my drawing, I made it quick in MS Paint but this is what I'd recommend.

zmadams

Awesome, thank you. I think the first picture should help a lot.
And yes, right now I have my aux lights wired with relays 1 relay per 2 lights out of 4 lights total.
And I think I see where you're going with the diagram you drew (beautiful art by the way lol) but I would still have to provide 12 volt switched power to the light switch to make it work so I was thinking it would just be easier to run that wire into my high beam wire.
Is what I'm suggesting super unsafe? I don't think the 12 volt switched wire going into my light switch draws hardly any power, I'm thinking it's really just a signal wire to make sure the lights aren't left on with the engine off.

homer

Nothing wrong with that at all. The only reason I chose ground as a on/off switch is because the entire chassis is grounded so #1. you can get ground from any piece of metal in the cab (and the relay coil draws such little current), and if the wire becomes crimped or anything it's grounded anyways (other than it'll activate the switch). In your case, since you already have relays for the auxiliary lights (and 2 is great, less load on each one) you're probably easiest to do it the way you're preferring. This way you don't have to go and pull out all of your existing wiring...


The only recommendation I would make if you go with +12V into the cab from that high beam wire to your switch is put an inline fuse right at the splice (or close to) the high beam wire. I would use a 1-5A fuse (as the relays won't use much anyways), probably 1A... This way if you mistakenly short it (it can happen) you don't blow out your 20A high beam fuse and lose highbeams, you only lose your auxiliary lights. Does that make sense?


The only other recommendation is if your relays tie directly to the battery for 12V currently for the auxiliary lights, they should always be fused closest to the battery though. One of the main examples I can use for that is if you are ever in a collision, the fuse will blow. If the fuse is inside the cab or there is no fuse and the wire becomes crimped, there's potential for a risk of fire. Does that make sense? I'm guessing though that it came with a wiring kit so it probably already had fuses for that section.

homer

btw, this is how I learned to draw