the only reason you use a relay harness is because the stock wire cannot supply the current needed for them. you don't have to run it to the battery itself but that stock post on the fusebox is a good place to do it

 

Thanks for the tip!

I've actually done what I've described, on my girlfriend's 2002 Civic when we replaced her headlights, and we haven't had any trouble with blown fuses, melted wires or overheated wires, etc. So I was contemplating doing it now with my TC. But I would rather try to work it into the fuse panel, or make it a bit tidier, if I was going to run it off the battery, and try to hide the wires a bit better. I think it would be safer to run it off the battery (with a 30A fuse of course), but by tapping into the highbeam wire, you can hide all the wires and relays inside the bumper, with no worries about trying to secure any wires running from the headlights to the battery...and then ontop of this, I'd also like to do the same type of thing with the foglights...because the fog lights also turn off when you turn on the highbeams...What have other's done for this?

Better yet, does anyone know the mmaximum current that a 55W halogen H7 bulb will draw? And the maximum current that a 35W DDM Slim HID Ballast will draw?


ps. when I refer to the battery, i'm not talking abuot the actual battery in the trunk, I mean the terminals by the fusebox...sorry should've mentioned this before....

 

Current = Watts / Volts
Current = 55 / 12
4.5 = 55 / 12

Hope that helps.

 

well the main problem is hids require more power to start up. once running they are by far more efficient over halogen. and unfortunately i don't think there's a cookie cutter answer for how much they actually draw seeing as different hids and different ballasts will act differently.

If your plan is to use the stock wiring for whatever reason that's fine. just get a plug and play harness. just know that if you do so then you may run into issues in the future. Some people have done plug and play for years and had no problems and others it gets a melting in a month.

regarding the highbeams and foglights the question is do you want the foglights on every time you have on your highbeams or do you still want to be able to turn them off? it would be easy to wire the highbeams in with the foglights so they turn on every time you hit the highs and are "controllable" when you have the lows on. but making it so you have control all the time and they turn on with the high beam would require you to run completely new wiring

 

these are general numbers, but show why 12V and 55w arent always the case. the ballast creates more than the 12V provides.

 

Would it not be possible to use a second relay tapped to the high beams to trip the HID relay like this...



This setup seems easier to me...

 

im not the greatest with wiring this kind of stuff any way you can make a how to with pictures of you doing this to the actual set up

 

The ballast increases voltage, but you're still drawing 55 watts of power (assuming a 55W ballast), any extra power is drawn from a capacitor which has been precharged from the last time the ballasts were on and powered up fully.

 

cant you just splice a wire into the low beams then run that wire to the high beams fuse? so that it will have power when you turn on highs?

 

You probably could but that sounds like a major risk of setting the car on fire. Relays are used to safely switch high voltage high current loads from one source to another. They should most definitely be used in something like this for safety.

 

Alright so where are most people running their wires? As in, how are you making it neat and tidy and keeping them out of the way and hidden? Need suggestions.

 

ok i really dont understand this and im getting my highs in this next week.

 

Actually they're used to switch current on/off using another voltage source... Stop confusing the guy

 

That's what I said.. One source to another. High voltage/current from battery to HID ballasts in this example. One source to another. Uses a low voltage source to signal the relay.

 

Ugh no you said "Relays are used to safely switch high voltage high current loads from one source to another"...

They don't transfer anything, they just switch power on and off...

 

could you use just one relay to run both the right and left headlight?

 

Sub'd
going to be doing this soon.

 

That's what I do in my setup, I connect the relay to the factory positive wire of my drivers side headlights and then have the load side of the relay split off and go to each HID ballast, with a fuse before each ballast of course.

If you want redundancy I guess you could hook the positive side of both factory headlight wires to the signal side of your relay, but one will do just fine. I just used the drivers side because that's the side I have my relay on and then I don't have to run a wire across. You would have to do this method though if you had one of those Dodge vehicles that turn off the headlight when the signal light comes on, because you don't want to put that kind of stress of turning on and off on your bulbs.

 

you only need one 12VDC automotive relay? or you need one for each headlight?

 

Just one relay, the power splits off after the relay to each headlights and is fused at each light after the split off. Two relays seemed pointless to me, one relay can handle both.

 

ok so i splice into both headlights and run the two wires into one to go into the relay right?

 

I have no idea what you just said, just reread what I wrote haha.

 

lol my fault. so i tap into the high beam wires from both headlights run that to the relay right? in order for both of these lights to have the low and high beams on.

 

Well if you want both high and low you're going to have to hook into all four wires.

I would suggest one relay run the high beam and one relay run the low beams though, since they're rated at 30Amps each and each headlight is fused for 10 amps each. You could get away with just one, but just to stay in factory specs, I'd use two.

 

I would like to know how to wire it so the high beams turn the fog lights on as well, while keeping functionality during low beams... Is it just run a wire from the positive on the fog lights them self to the spot where the high beams or sending power to the low beams, or is there a better set up?

Another thing is, will the high beam circuit be able to hold the power load of the high beams, low beams, and the fog lights?