lED bumper lights

[sgopus]

I need some help with finding a power source that off till the key is turned on, right now they work regardless as it's direct to the battery, I don't want that, I only want them on when the key is on and I press a button to get them on.
point me to a pic of the power dist show me a source that's on only when key is on., and thanks a bunch. Yes I know the lights are illegal when on road, but I only intend using them off road anyway so I'm good

 

[dudeman2009]

What i'm hearing is you want lights that shut off when the key is out no matter what, but when the key is on you want a switch control.

There are a couple ways to do this, the easiest is to just get an automotive relay, 2 inline fuses, switch and some wire.

Run the common of the relay through an inline fuse sized properly to the gauge of wire and load of the lighting being used and straight to battery positive. Run the normally open contact to your lights and then the lights to ground. Now when the relay turns on the lights turn on and are protected by a fuse. Now you need to hook one of the signal pins of the relay up to ground. Now take the other pin and run it to one side of the switch, from the other terminal on the switch run it to an inline fuse rated at 1 or 2 amps. From there you're going to be in the dash somewhere so we'll use the easiest ignition switched wire in the car, the radio ignition wire, its going to be the red and white wire on the radio.

This way you are only drawing about 200ma from the ignition switch and sourcing all the power for the lights directly from the battery. With a small fuse rating on the switch you reduce the chance of damaging the vehicle electrical system to almost nothing while still being able to draw 40/60A directly from the battery/alternator for any lighting demand you may have in the future. Be it just some LED bumper lights, or high power LED off-road lighting. And since the power supplied to the switch is killed with the radio, the relay will also lose power and shut off the lighting when the radio loses power. This also gives you the option of turning the key to accessory to only power up the lighting and not the vehicle computers or blower motor.

 

[17CrewCab1500]

Well said Dudeman...

Run it through a relay and a switch in the cab.
Google image for 4 prong rely for a visual

 

[dudeman2009]

Just get yourself a standard ISO relay, they are super cheap with the harness that comes with pigtails.

 

[sgopus]

Thanks this is good stuff, the current wiring harness for Led bumper lights has it's own relay, 40 amp and it's own switch, so the point about getting a automotive 4 point relay is a good one, I could use the vehicles PDU and tap into the fog light circuit, at least there the headlight switch has to be on before the LED circuit has any power, protecting my batteries from being depleted when all is off. I just need to figure out which plug in the PDU is for the fog lamps, it didn't come with that option from factory, so it's something I would have to add. thanks for the responses.

 

[dudeman2009]

Thanks this is good stuff, the current wiring harness for Led bumper lights has it's own relay, 40 amp and it's own switch, so the point about getting a automotive 4 point relay is a good one, I could use the vehicles PDU and tap into the fog light circuit, at least there the headlight switch has to be on before the LED circuit has any power, protecting my batteries from being depleted when all is off. I just need to figure out which plug in the PDU is for the fog lamps, it didn't come with that option from factory, so it's something I would have to add. thanks for the responses.

Not quite the way the fog lamp circuit works. The front lighting is essentially positive ground, not negative, so unless the lights are on, the headlamp wiring is always live at 12V, fog lamps included, even then only hitting the high beams would shut off the LEDs if wired like that.

The simplest and least likely to have problems in the future way is to do exactly as I described. That way the lights are killed when the truck is off and it works as you expect. You have to run wires under the dash anyway for the switch.

 

[sgopus]

Thanks for the tips, currently I got a wiring harness that has it's own switch and relay and remote, that allows for flashing and able to choose a different sequence for the flashing, so I would like to be able to use the current harness so I could use the remote function, the included switch is currently inside the cab, everything is installed, just not connected to a power source, I had it temp connected and all works except for the constant power drain on the battery, so I would really like to tap into a power source that is only on when the key is on, thanks a bunch