LED Wiring Help

Let me start by saying that I am a fairly new member to the cite and have little experience with electrical wiring. I Just recently bought a Caliraised LED light bar from a fellow tw member and mounted the light bar today. Wiring seemed pretty simple but as I went to test the light for the first time, it failed to illuminate.

I used the included relay harness that came with the Caliraised LED bar.

Connected the LED to the relay, the relay to the positive and negative terminal, and ran a switch to the cab. As of now there is no ground. Almost all of the diagrams I have seen include grounds.

However I did come across this video.
The harness in the video is like the one I have



I'm sure I'm missing something very simple but like I said, I'm still new to all this lol

 

Negative is your ground. Anything that is connected to ground in the diagrams should be connected to a negative spot. The body of your truck is connected to the negative of the battery, so basically anywhere you can get metal contact is ground.

 

Your electricity current needs to ultimately return to the source, and the way to pull that off is to properly ground the current (negative) to the chassis. If there is a relay, you want to make sure that there is power into the relay from the battery, and ideally that it is fused (30 tab on relay). Ground that relay (85), then have a hot line in (about 2.5a) from the switch to the signal (86). The resulting output when power is going in to the relay goes out via tab 87.

The switch needs to be grounded in order for the light on the switch to work, otherwise no ground is required.

The light/accessory needs to be grounded as well for them to go on. It's also worth checking to ensure that the connections are all good, and that there are no shorts. I usually test each light on a 9v battery, or drill battery, with some short leads to ensure the lights work (and to make sure I know which wire is hot/negative, because red/black don't always mean red/black).

 

try connecting the negative cable to a unpainted bare metal bolt/washer. Did the connections click when you plugged them in?

 

The harness I used only comes with one black wire. No ground for the switch or the light bar. Is this possible

 

Are there 1 or 2 wires connecting to the light bar? It is possible that you need only to ground 1 part of the harness, but the rest of the harness has ground wires run throughout and tied into the main one that connects to the chassis.

 

I connected a black and red wire from the LED to another black and red to the relay

 

this is how I wired it all up

 

that harness has power and ground wires running to the light bar. i couldn't tell from the video if the switch has 2 or 3 wires.

if the switch is a two wire: there will be no chassis ground wire. one wire will have 12+ fed from the fused wire going to the battery. the other wire will be the return wire back to the relay for pin
86. this allows the relay to be activated.

if the switch is a three wire: there will be a chassis ground wire. one wire will have 12+ fed from the fused wire going to the battery. the other wire will be the return wire back to the relay for pin
86. this allows the relay to be activated. the ground wire will return back to the relay for pin 85. this allows a lighted switch to be illuminated.

if you have a 3 wire switch, make sure you have the correct wires attached the correct terminals on the switch. Nickel = silver color / Brass = Goldish color
Make sure the Fuse is good and in the holder.
You may also have a bad relay, swap it out with another.

 

here's the diagrams

 

Okay, went to autozone and switched out the relay... that wasn't the problem. While at autozone I bought a mutimeter to see if the bar is getting power. Gonna check that out tonight.

 

if the switch checks out good and you have power at the plug when switched on... then you have a bad light bar.

 

update: the switch receives power, bar does not. Relay is good, ground is good.

 

how'd it come along?

 

yeah. figured out female relay was bad so we hooked it up straight to the battery to make sure the light bar was good. it finally turned on but the switch isn't hooked up yet so it's always on unless I take the fuse out lol. gonna try to hook the switch up today.



anyone know if a relay is absolutely necessary. Pros cons?

 

A relay is there so that you don't have too much current going through your switch and wires. If your switch and the wiring to your switch is robust enough, a relay provides minimal benefit. If they aren't that robust, a relay adds safety by requiring only minimal current going through the switch, as the current for the light bar is directed through the relay.

 

thinking I might have needed that relay because when the switch is flipped off, the fuse blows.

 

Yeah it was a bad relay. Got a new harness coming in thursday. Thanks man

 

Alright guys I'm fairly new to wiring but I have done it before with auxiliary lighting but I can not figure out how to connect my wiring harness to the switch here... any suggestions?

 

That harness looks like it belongs to a set of rigid lights, is that correct? If so, you are going to need to add a relay. The switch you have cannot handle the current draw of operating the lights by itself.