so im in the process of wiring up my chicken lights. gotta finish grabbing supplies so i can finish this over the weekend. i was told by my electronics teacher to run them in a parallel circuit. which would mean just to run them straight to the battery and have a switch in between in my cab somewhere and having a fuse of course. or ive read that i could splice them into my running lights which is sorta scary to me. i like the separate switch idea though. issue ive been reading is something about amperage and about running relays which i dont understand. any help would be greatly appreciated. what gauge wire would be sufficient and how should i go about connecting wires? solder, crimps, t taps? keep in mind im in PA which means lots of salt!

issue two is im attaching this to my pinch welds at bottom of the cab, but my one side has a bit of rust and its sorta peeling. how should i go about repairing it i dont want to just cover a problem if i can fix it quick.

another question is that aluminum strip paintable? i think it would look better black?

 

Well you got to ask yourself how much does each light draw. Honestly I think 12-14 ga wire with solder connections and heat shrink over them. If you think about it tho most trailer wiring setup just T's off your tail light wiring and that runs 4-8 marker lights and 2 tail lights. So I think doing a T off your parking lights would be fine. As far as the rust/peeling paint grind it all down to bare metal and then primer it and paint it. The same thing with that aluminum just scuff it up and paint it. I would honestly spray it with a bedliner material so it wont chip as easy

 

You can Google wiring a 12V relay. I don't have one in front of me, but I wire everything through relays. That way you can keep the high amp draws under the hood and just use a very low amp draw to switch the coil side of the rely. The relays usually have 5 connections on them of which you will use four. One connection will be fused from your battery to the relay then another relay connection feeds to your lights. A low amp fused feed in your cab will go to your switch then from your switch to your relay coil. The fourth hook up will go to ground. When you throw your switch a low amp draw will make your coil which switches power from your battery to your lights. Ground hook up speaks for its self. I always use a low amp connection that is switched through the ignition so the key kills the power and you can't accidentally leave them on. Hope this helps.

 

dodgeramguy,
i bought some 60 ft 16 guage, bought some cool wire crimp things that just grab right to the wire with pliers or something so no need for solder, then ill thow elec tape over em and this liquid watertight stuff.

uw,
could i just get away with running the wire from battery to fuse to switch to lights and not use any relays? relay thing is sort of confusing after reading it up although it is pretty late and im thinking stupidly.
30 will go to fuse then battery
85 ground
87 to chicken lights
86 to switch then what?

 

86 would need a hot wire from in the cab to feed it which I would run from something controlled by the ignition. It could be a smaller wire because it will draw less than an amp. Sorry I didn't have time to look up the switch to help more, looks like you have it covered.

Yes you could do the simpler battery to fuse to the switch to the lights, I have just never been a real fan of it.

Good luck.

 

ther are several ways to wire this. do you want the lights on a separate switch or have them come on with the parking lights. i personally choose parking lights.
this is how I would wire it. just my $.02 worth.
87- to fused 12v batt
30- to chicken lights(pos side of lights)
86- to ground
85- to 12v wire off of a parking light.
if you do it this way, all of you connections can be made under the hood near the PDC. there will almost no draw off of the parking lights because you are only useing it to trigger the relay. also i like to use the 87 as an input instead of the 30 when possible.

 

thank you uw and mcnasty,
bought my relay today and am gonna set it up like you have stated mcnast off of the parking lights

now i have one more question i bought a illuminated swith and it has 3 leads power, load, ground. power will go to relay and load to the parking lights tap or does it not matter
?

 

if you wire it my way you wont need a switch, they will come on with the parking lights. if you dont want them on all the time when you have the prklights on, then you need a switch. on the switch power would be the input to the switch for 2 reasons, 1) what goes in the power terminal comes out the "load" terminal. 2) it also is used for the illumination of the switch along with the ground terminal. im not sure if your switch can do it, but i would like to see you try this.
switch terminals:
ground- hook up a 12v power it
power- hook up a ground to it
load- run that wire to the 86 of the relay.
bench test the switch to see if it lights up when you reverse the inputs.
some will and some wont.

 

id like to have the switch in just for the fact i can switch them on off, can i tap it into running lights lead (if im thinking right the switch will only work when running lights are on)?

 

yes, correct.