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Spotlights

kingtom

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Nov 22, 2014
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Can I get some pointers on which battery to wire my spots onto?
Cheers
Tom
 
Interesting - wouldn't have thought there was any difference?? Considering the truck will be running when the spots are on (or should be) I would have thought it would be irrelevant?
 
I was advised by good winch to only use the drivers side (RHD vehicle) battery to power the winch as the electrical system on the 80 was never designed for the other battery to ever supply power other than to start the vehicle and I could expect bad things to happen if I used it, I have also heard that from an auto electrician so perhaps there is something to it.
 
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I would add that if you want them to come on with the main beam, that you aware that the stock relay is already a known weak point on the 80, so do not tap directly into the loom, add another relay.

regards

Dave
 
During normal running the batteries are paired up in parallel. To connect anything to the nearside battery with both positive and negative cabling would almost certainly result in the - terminal being connected to the vehicle bodywork through the casing of the light, winch, etc. During starting this would produce a short circuit, probably unfused, from the + of the driver side (RH) battery. Small wires would catch fire, large winch style ones would heat up and kill the battery. And the truck would probably not start.

Connecting something using the + of the LH battery and vehicle ground would put 24V across it during starting.

As said, use the RH battery, fuse as close as possible to the battery and fit a relay. There's some nice combined relay and fuse holders on eBay.
http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&alt=web&id=141098710151
 
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So instead of going direct to batteries should this sort of thing not be connected up to the power outlet box which supplies both switched and unswitchrd power, fuses and a proper earth point??
 
Ideally Gary, though it is sometimes difficult to trace the correct wires to connect to and we have no idea what loading these are taking. Far better to fit a relay with a suitable local fuse very close to the battery terminal (to prevent anything that shorts in an accident from setting the truck on fire) and allow the relay contacts to switch the new load (spotlights in this case). It is then a case of running a wire to feed the relay coil from the main beam wire via an internal switch inside the truck. That way none of the existing wiring or relays get overloaded most of the wiring gets done under the bonnet.

The only downside with the eBay units (which IIRC are Durite ones) is I cannot find a cover for them.
 
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Cool. One to take note of then!!
You don't need to worry about this Gary, yours is 12v start so no danger of 24v and the battery -VE cables have been uprated to something more suitable for the batteries to operate independently or in parallel.
 
Yup had that covered Jon but I wasn't going to brag nor say that this was just one more reason to do away with the pesky 24volt crossover stuff ;)

Your mods have made it so much easier to work with ... ;)
 
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