These light bars are pretty common these days so I'm guessing someone has a quick answer or can point me to a DIY (Search of the Tech and NON-Tech forums came up with a goose egg).

I have a proper wiring harness with a fuse and a relay so I'm on the right track. There is also a dash mounted lighted rocker switch in the kit.

What I'm looking to do is tap into the high beam circuit to drive the relay AND run the dash mounted switch so the light bar will only come on when both the dash mounted switch and the high beams are on.

I'm thinking I can pull 12V+ from the wiring harness that feeds one of the two headlight high beams, feed it to the switch, which then drives the relay.

I want to make sure that adding this small amount of load (the tiny light in the rocker switch and the relay) will not wreak havoc with the IPM ... either damaging it or causing it to turn on warning lights.

Any ideas on where would be the best place to tap into the wiring harness for this job would be appreciated ... it would save me doing a bunch of probing looking for the right wire!

TIA

Mark

 

Why don't you run to switched power. Then you can turn it on whenever

 

Mainly because it's purpose is to augment the sucky stock high beams when I'm driving on deer infested state highways and county roads here in central Texas. I want to be able to quickly turn it off for oncoming traffic and to be able to turn it off completely so the stock high beams can function in a more legal fashion for those rare times I've got to go to a larger city where the local constabulary might frown on such a light bar. No worries about that out here in the country.

 

Not sure what happened to my reply, but my goal is to use the LED bar to augment the very poor OEM high beams.

By wiring it in series with the high beam power I can have it come on with the high beams any time I'm driving down an open highway or county road out here in rural Texas ... and be able to quickly toggle it off along with the high beams when there is approaching traffic. Having the rocker switch in the series also allows me to turn it off completely so I don't run afoul of the law when driving in more urban areas where they actually care about such things.

 

I recommend just running it on it's own switch. I use both bars when riding on a lonely road, it doesn't take any extra time for me to switch it all off.

 

This is how I'm looking to set it up.

 

Well, I put the time in to figure out how to do this on a early 3rd gen Ram. It's working exactly as I wanted and for the purpose of running a LED Light bar on-highway as supplemental lighting I can't imagine not wanting to wire it up this way.

https://youtu.be/1wYvAkw1viQ