Mounting Driving Lights and Wiring Questions

[HunterCat]

Thanks to all for trying to help walk me through this. I appreciate it!

 

[diymirage]

Thank you for taking the time to lay that out. My understanding of how this switch works is a little fuzzy but here's what I'm thinking:

I'll be using the harness I noted above but with this 7 post switch substituted in. Therefore the lights will be powered by the relay and I will not be bringing in power directly from the battery. I would hook up the switch as follows:

Post 1 - feed for the off road lights
Post 2 - fuse tap from the high beams
Post 5 - fuse tap from something that goes on/off with the truck
Post 6 - feed for the amber backlights
Post 7 - ground

Posts 3 and 4 would remain empty. If my understanding is correct, when the switch is in the upper position, the off road lights would go on with the high beams. When in the lower position, the amber backlights will go on and off with the ignition.

Is this correct? My general assumption about this switch in simple terms is that post 2 provides power for posts 1 and 3 and post 5 provides power for posts 4 and 6.

nope, it turns out i was wrong
(i actually went to the garage, ripped the switch from the back plow of the superdookie and read it out)

lets back track, post 2 feeds post 1 and 3
post 5 feeds 6 and 7

now, here is the rub, posts 1 and 3 are the internal LEDs so you could leave posts 1, 2, 3 and 7 empty (7 being a dedicated ground only used for the internal LEDs)


so, what we need to do is the following, we install a fuse tap from your brights and one from your running lights an connect both of those to post 5

since we are dealing with Direct Current (DC) we have a flow of electricity which only goes one way, so we if we install a diode (electrical equivalent of a check valve) in both those wire taps we ensure that current only travels from the wire tap into the switch, and not the other way around

(if we dont do this, we get something called backfeeding, we dont want that)

once we got that installed, we can put the off road lights on post 4 and the amber lights on post 6 and all is well


if you want the internal LEDs to come on when the lights are on, we run a jumper wire from post 5 to post 2, another one from post 4 to post 1 and finally one from post 6 to post 4


sorry i had that wrong the first time , but this time, im confident i got it right !

 

[Badger 13]

Which power level of your Diode Dynamics SS3 did you go with ? Sport, Pro, or Max ?

 

[HunterCat]

nope, it turns out i was wrong
(i actually went to the garage, ripped the switch from the back plow of the superdookie and read it out)

lets back track, post 2 feeds post 1 and 3
post 5 feeds 6 and 7

now, here is the rub, posts 1 and 3 are the internal LEDs so you could leave posts 1, 2, 3 and 7 empty (7 being a dedicated ground only used for the internal LEDs)


so, what we need to do is the following, we install a fuse tap from your brights and one from your running lights an connect both of those to post 5

since we are dealing with Direct Current (DC) we have a flow of electricity which only goes one way, so we if we install a diode (electrical equivalent of a check valve) in both those wire taps we ensure that current only travels from the wire tap into the switch, and not the other way around

(if we dont do this, we get something called backfeeding, we dont want that)

once we got that installed, we can put the off road lights on post 4 and the amber lights on post 6 and all is well


if you want the internal LEDs to come on when the lights are on, we run a jumper wire from post 5 to post 2, another one from post 4 to post 1 and finally one from post 6 to post 4


sorry i had that wrong the first time , but this time, im confident i got it right !

Ok, the switch doesn't operate as I thought. One side is just for the switch LEDs.

I'm not sure your method will work because the off road lights will come on with the switch in the upper position without the hi-beams on. The upper position will be getting power from two sources and one of those sources will be powered. I could be wrong since I'm clearly out of my element on this .

In any event, I'm throwing in the towel on this project. I'd need to get it wired by a shop which puts me over the top of what I was willing to spend.

Thanks again to all.

 

[HunterCat]

Which power level of your Diode Dynamics SS3 did you go with ? Sport, Pro, or Max ?

I was planning on going with the Pros but didn't actually pull the trigger on the lights since I wanted to get the wiring sorted out in my brain.

I'm calling it quits on this since I'm out of my depth and I can't do the work myself.

 

[Badger 13]

Thanks for the info. Don't give up, maybe someone in the area can give you hand with it.

 

[Mercruth]

Put mine under the bumper on the frame, NO JIGGLE FOR SURE! But you gotta have the clean under front, newer trucks may not be an option.

 

[diymirage]

NO JIGGLE FOR SURE! But you gotta have the clean under front, newer trucks may not be an option.

Some things look better with a little jiggle to em