2 wire case grounded lights???

[LOGANSTANFORTH]

I wanted to keep this seperate from my thread cause it seemed weird to how my Hella's wired up.

I figured it would be a normal power and ground 2 wire hook up. No, not even ucking close...

1st I found out that you cannot run a LED indicator light on the ground side in series cause the lights will not work. My switches are on my ground side as well.

I had them wired like this and the LED would light but nothing else would...


Then I rewired them like this to make them work after playing with them and accidentally figuring it out when I touched the ground wire to the brush guard. I do not understand why they had to be case grounded if they have a power and ground wire going to them. It wouldnt ground to the battery but it would ground to the brush guard or the bumper, nothing else...

[steveh]

The LED is a diode, therefore has enough resistance to not work as a ground for the lights, hence why the second method worked.

[egdinger]

Originally Posted by LOGANSTANFORTH

It wouldnt ground to the battery but it would ground to the brush guard or the bumper, nothing else...

The second setup should work if run the wire that's going from the LED side of the switch to the battery's ground terminal, are you saying you tried that and it didn't work?

To expand on what steveh said, LED's need to be current limited so they don't burn up, for small LED's this is done with just a resistor. They are limited to somewhere around 5-30 mA (depends on color/brightness). By trying to run the ground for your lights through the LED that's all the current that can pass through any point in that circuit.

[LOGANSTANFORTH]

Originally Posted by steveh

The LED is a diode, therefore has enough resistance to not work as a ground for the lights, hence why the second method worked.

Originally Posted by egdinger

The second setup should work if run the wire that's going from the LED side of the switch to the battery's ground terminal, are you saying you tried that and it didn't work?

To expand on what steveh said, LED's need to be current limited so they don't burn up, for small LED's this is done with just a resistor. They are limited to somewhere around 5-30 mA (depends on color/brightness). By trying to run the ground for your lights through the LED that's all the current that can pass through any point in that circuit.

After remembering that the inline LED wouldn't work I removed it from the equation and it still wouldn't light, how come they wouldn't work when grounded to the battery, frame, engine, or anywhere else BUT the bumper, brush guard, and light itself????

[egdinger]

Originally Posted by LOGANSTANFORTH

After remembering that the inline LED wouldn't work I removed it from the equation and it still wouldn't light, how come they wouldn't work when grounded to the battery, frame, engine, or anywhere else BUT the bumper, brush guard, and light itself????

I've got no idea, I guessed these are the Hella's from the other thread and I can't find any install or tech documents from Hella, so I don't know if they do anything funny, but I'd be surprised if they did.

Do you have an extra light (or pigtail)? I'd be interested to know if you hook a light up straight to a battery if they light up.

[Mutt]

This should work as well....

Not like it matters most of the time but the long leg is typically your + lead

[atblis]

To expand on what steveh said, LED's need to be current limited so they don't burn up, for small LED's this is done with just a resistor. They are limited to somewhere around 5-30 mA (depends on color/brightness). By trying to run the ground for your lights through the LED that's all the current that can pass through any point in that circuit.

Well, more can pass...for a little while anyways.

Why don't you just buy a switch that has a built in indicator light?

[TorqueRanger]

Why don't you just wire it like this???
http://www.titantalk.com/forums/atta...ch-foglite.jpg

[R290]

Originally Posted by TorqueRanger

Why don't you just wire it like this???
http://www.titantalk.com/forums/atta...ch-foglite.jpg

If he reverses the + and - he could. He is currently running a switched ground vs a switch positive lead.



I bought a bag of led light holder thingy's, you just drill a 1/4 hole and pop the plastic thing in place and the led pushes in from the rear and locks into place.
quick way to add a light to a switch.