Desert Snow

What's up everyone...

I have windshield mounted Rigid Dually's and I'm adding an E Series 6" to the bumper. I was wondering if I can just splice into the existing wires instead of running the 6" to the battery and inside the cab. I'm absolutely cool with having them all work off of one switch. Is this is a legit approach? Are there any cons to this approach or anything special I should know about?

cmg

You can wire them in parallel providing your wires coming from the battery can support the current of both lights. Wiring them in series will reduce power to the second light in the chain.

I "borrowed" these images from the web.

Series wiring (not recommended)


Parallel wiring


CG

Desert Snow

um...so, by parallel you mean don't splice? Holly crap...those diagrams don't make any sense to me. Can you dumb it down?

cmg

Don't cut the leads in insert the light in between. There should be a power wire and a ground wire coming to your current light, unless you are grounded to the chassis. You need to tap a lead off the power wire (typically red) and bring it to you new light as well as a lead off ground wire (typically black) and bring that you your new light.

You still need to make sure the lead(s) coming from the battery can handle the power of the 2 lights. Do you know the wire sizes you have installed and the power draw of both lights?


CG

ntropy

Electrical Diagrams scare the crap out of me too. But the theory I think I understand.

In series means you would wire from the battery to one light and then from that light to the next light, in a chain, like you asked about. In series means there's only one wire sending power from the battery. This isn't a good strategy.

In parallel means you run power from the battery to each light (i.e. one red from battery to one light, another red from battery to the other light)- in other words, you'll have two parallel red wires. Now how you get one switch to handle that, I'm not sure, I'm sure someone else will chime in. I think as long as the switch can handle the amount of both wires' current (what CMG said), you can run both wires into the single switch.

Desert Snow

New light: 25.5 watts and 1.77 amps
Exiting lights: 15 watts and 1 amp each (there are 2)

The wire is a heavy gauge, but I'm not certain on the exact size.

JK-Ford

Well your math is a little off. But you are dealing with lo enough numberst to say: Yes, you can put them all on the same circuit.

Desert Snow

Thanks for the reply. Where's the math off?

JK-Ford

25.5w / 12v = 2.125A - not 1.77A

and

15w / 12v = 1.25A - not 1A



Little off but not enough to make a differance.

2010Mountain

You can do this, I used 12 guage wire, connected everything to my home made relay box. And No Problems.