Why is there only positive wires coming from my aux lights?
 

Hi guys,

I just bougt some rocklights from Trail-gear.com. I am going to use them as aux backup lights.

There is only a black wire coming out from them, Im guessing its just the positive wire. Why is there no ground wire? Do these work w/o grounds, or is the ground somehow connected to the metal mount?

Please help!
Thanks!

they probally get their ground from the mount, so dont mount them on plastic unless you ground the mount..

I would suggest running a larger ground from your battery to your frame... I beefed mine up for any future lights and such...

Hmmph. Yeah, the ground must be the mount itself. Weird.

May be, may not be. When I bought Hella 500s I had to dissassemble them and attach the wires.

The acid test would be to apply 12 volt+ from the car battery to the wire, then touch the mounting stud to the frame or something else sturdy, if the light come on, Nala was right. If not, crack em' open and you may find connectors with nothing connected!

Lamm

that would be a lame deal!!

Yeah, I cant figure out how to get the backing off anyways.

I sent an email to Trail-gear, they'll probably know whats up.

Really? I just bought a set of 500's. I will get them early next week. I wonder if mine will be the same...

Yes the ground is in the metal clamp, only problem is if you mount them to a painted surface you might have grounding issues. When i mounted the lights on my roll bar I had to run my own ground wire from the lights because i had a few coats of paint on the mounting points.

I guess Corey has the same backup lights that I bought.. He mentions that the ground IS the mount.

Okay. Makes me feel better.

Hey, if anyone can help me with these questions...


1) Should I mount my relay closer to the rear aux lights, or to the battery?
2) Do I need an inline 30amp fuse for the power-wire for the relay? What guage wire should I be using to power the relay (From the battery)?
3) I plan on splicing a wire from my backup lights to switch on the relay, this will work right? (instead of a switch).
4) What guage wire should I use to connect the relay to the lights? Can I just fuse the two positive wires of each of the lights to go into the one male connector on the relay?

1) somewhere protected...the shorter the run from the reverse light circuit to the relay the better

2) watts/volts = amps....go 10% higer... for wire use this chart; remeber in a DC circuit the leangh is the distance from the battery to the light, to the battery...even though your using a chasis ground. I would also add another chassis ground in the engine compartment...

3)Yes should work well, I persoanally would just switch it..then you can use them when not in reverse...like when some A-hole is tailgaiting you....

4) see #2, and yes that should work...be sure to use the wattage from both lights combined when determining wire gauge.

Post pics when done

I got 95% of it finished today. I will post pictures tomorrow.

Instead of running an inline fuse to the relay, I got an aux fuse box and am running a 30amp fuse there. Now, I can add other stuff as well to it.

I tapped into my reverse lights, and I have the relay all wired up. I just need to buy more wire and power the relay to the fusebox. :)

The lights look good though where I mounted them, so iM stoked.

Make sure you check the rating of your aux fuse box. A lot of them are only rated for a total of 30 amps. What size inline fuse did you use between the battery and aux fuse box? If the aux fuse box is only rated for 30 amps, then those lights are pretty much the only thing you can wire through there. Are you sure you need a 30 amp fuse for your lights? That means your total wattage for your lights is higher than 300 watts? How many lights are you mounting and what is the individual wattage? If you're indeed running a 30 amp fuse for the lights, you'll need 10 guage wire (possibly 8, depending on the actual length of the wire run) to go from the front of the truck (battery) through your relay and to the hot wire of your lights.

Yeah, if you got the 55wers, you should be good with either a 10amp, slow blow,or a 15amp. I wouldn't go higher since you wont need it.