quick comment on the status led's... do you have a pullup resistor on them? should have a 470 ohm 1/8th watt to limit the current some in the diode...

 

yea they already have a resistor on them... but im wondering if i should put in some larger resistors since im dealing with large amp draws on the solenoids (witch doesnt come into contact with the diode circuit) and a truck battery 12V...


its wierd though b./c i have the neg side of the diodes grounded to the chassis and i have the pos side of the diodes wired onto the switched pole of the soleniods.. so whatever switches the soleniods to kick on .. either my manual switch or the thermoswitches... the diode gets juice indicating to me the soleniods have kicked over and have turned on the fans... but when they switch off and power is taken away from the diodes then switched back on again they dont light back up.. its like a one time deal.. they light up for however long the fans are on for then they wont light up again..they blow... i should have payed more attention in my electronics class lol


i figured i could wire them inline with the power leads going to the fans but they are the leads drawing massive amounts of amps and could potentially fry the diodes.. and on the other hand when the fans are freewheeling they produce voltage that acutally light up the diodes and make it kind of hard for me to tell if they are just spinning or actually lit up b/c the fans are on.... back to the drawing board i guess...

one more thing..i made up my mind on my power supply issue on the truck... im gonna eventually order either a 170 amp alt or a 200 amp alt and run dual batterys with an isolator... so down the road when i add more electrically demanding crap on the truck im already setup with it... ie a large stereo up to 3000 watts total and my firefighter lightbar/wigwags and external driving lights when the bullbar goes on...

the only thing is that i can find a 170 amp alt for a good price on ebay made for the 01 ram..but the 200 amp alt is only made for a 94 to 99 dak but the pictures are identical..

another thing i was thinkin about is that since alternators produce there optimum amperege at or around 1400 to 1800 rpms... and only produce a fraction of what they are capable of at idle (800 rpm or less) i was thinking of getting the pully from an underdrive pully kit .. and just puttin git on the alt..(if an udnerdrive pully kit for an alt is smaller diameter then stock...witch i think it is...)...essentially makeing the alt rotate at a faster rate then what it would be doing with a normal pully at idle... creating more amperege during idle..witch is my main problem now... since the fans really only kck on during idle anyway... a few ideas..just not sure how i wanna apply them...

 

well if you throw all that eletrical stuff on you wanna you could just stick a diesle genorater in the back your set up plans sound good and i have no idea why your blowing your diodes

 

neither do i..doesnt make any sense... thats why i was thinking that the other diodes i put on werent working right... b/c of the voltage spike of the initial connection the solenoid makes when its commanded to....

 

are all the diodes you have used so far out of the same box? maby try a difrent brand, i usally use those indicator lights (that have a bulb in them under a coloured lense) not diodes another optiof for ya if the diodes drive you nuts lol

 

thats what i was thinking id have to use bulb type lighting... but the diodes should still work.. its not the fact that they wont work..its the fact that they are kicking my *** and i hate it that i cant figure them out! ill say one thing... doing this project really upped my 12v skills along the lines of basic electronics

 

lol yah i like to think i know a fair bit about 12 volt but i dont know why your blowing your diodes wen you say you have them hooked on the switched post do you mean your output termanal or the post that the switch is hooked to (ive come across pepole that call the output one the switch post because it gets "switched on") try maby hooking it to the outher one thow

 

one way i tried was hookin up to the switched post..for me thats the signal post to activate the solenoid.... so when theres 12v's sent to the solenoid to activate it the diode will come on

then the other way i tried was hooking it up to the coil post for the solenoid... the post that completes the curcuit and gives power to the fans... but the problem is.. is that when the fans arnt switched on and are spinning they produce power and like the diodes and pretty much takes the point away for even having the LEDS to tell me if they are on or not