What is, and how to use RELAY guide.

[Chris]

Everyone is trying to make this post redundant

Wiring diagrams make my mind hurt, I understand how it works and can make systems from scratch. But diagrams. Ugh.

And Justin, thanks for the NO/NC thing. I forgot about that. ... Yea, accidentally putting the wrong one in there could ruin someone's day.

I have a whole box of DPDT relays. So I can have whatever I want.

 

[scubiecraig]

Ok, I just wired up my Hella's today, and I cannot for the life of me figure out why this is happening.... I located the high beam bulb..... pulled it. Checked the voltage with a multimeter and located the negative line. It actually turns out on my car that there is a red and a black wire, respectively showing positive by the red wire color, and negative with the black wire color. So, I tapped the black (seeing as Subaru runs a negative switch). The Hella's come on with the switch in the cabin, however, when I drop down to low beams, they stay on. I tried tapping the other wire just for s**ts and giggles, and the same thing happens. Why? Right now I can only run the Hella's off the switch inside the cabin... and that's not how I want them. I want them to come on with just the high's and go off when I switch over to low's. Any insight would be appreciated.

 

[Chris]

Hard to answer, need to say how you have it wired?

Where are all the wires going to and from?

You need pos from batt to switch part of the relay, pos from the other switch of the pole to the lights.

Then a pos from batt to one of the coil poles. Neg from high beam, to switch, from switch to the other coil pole on the relay.

With a setup like that, it's impossible for the switch to turn it on when you have the high beams off. So you have something wired wrong. Does the relay click when you turn the switch? Or did you somehow run full power through the switch?

 

[scubiecraig]

Lets see.... here's my setup... (and this is going from memory because it's too dark now to go out and verify)

Hella lights have two wires coming out of them (1 black, 1 blue)

Blacks are wired up to the black wire on the relay.

Blues are wired to the chassis of the car - grounds.

I mounted the relay and there were 4 wires on that.

Red - wired directly to the battery's positive terminal.

Black - Wired to the Hella lights directly.

Yellow - Wired in through the firewall to the Hella switch.

Blue - Wired to a ground screw inside the engine bay.

Then inside the car I have the little Hella switch. That has three prongs on it.

Top prong has green wired to it.... and the green wire I ran through the firewall to the high beam negative wire. (This is the one I tried on both high beam wires and got the same result... that being I can switch them on and off via the Hella switch inside the car, but it doesn't go off with the high beams.)

Middle prong on the switch has the yellow wire, which was explained in the instructions as a trigger for the relay.

Bottom prong has a blue wire that I grounded inside the cabin underneath the steering wheel.

To answer your question about clicking when the I turn the switch on and off... yes it does click. However, the switch itself doesn't illuminate, which I think it is supposed to?

 

[Chris]

Wire colours don't mean anything to me. I don't have a wiring diagram for the hellas, so I don't know what colours go to the coil, etc.

From the sound of it, you don't have the switch wired right though.

One of the coil wires has to go to positive. The other coil wire goes to the switch, and then from the switch to the neg wire on the high beam.

I don't know what colours those are, if you link a hella wiring diagram maybe I can tell you which colours to put where.

 

[scubiecraig]

Refer to page 2. This is what came with my kit.

2-wire_auxiliary_lamp_mounting_instructions.pdf

 

[Chris]

Ok, so blue and yellow are the coil wires.

One of them needs to go to positive. Just jump it to red. It doesn't matter, use yellow.

Blue's routing will be as such, starting at the relay.

From the relay to one pole of the switch. From the other pole of the switch to the high beam negative.

This way, the only way the relay gets the negative signal is when the high beam is on AND the switch is on. If one of those conditions is not true, the hellas will not come on.

 

[scubiecraig]

Chris, I appreciate the help... but that doesn't make sense to me. The blue wire coming from the relay is actually a ground. It actually comes out of the relay, is fairly short, and came out of the box with a ring terminal on the other end of it. I'll see if I can either take pictures or a video tomorrow. I think what you said about "blue" actually should be green. There's a long green wire with a fuse inline on it.

 

[Chris]

I'm pretty sure the hella thing is set up for pos switched car. So you need one coil wire to positive (not negative, like it wants you to), and the other coil wire through the switch to the high beam circuit.

 

[2point5RS_Dan]

The hellas are set up for a positively switched car with a little blurb about negatively switched cars.

My father did my wiring since I'm wiring retarded. What he ended up doing was merging the red and blue into the relay and connecting to the battery. On my car, this means that the lights come on with the switch, stay on when the car is off, and only come on with the highbeams when the car is running.

I copied this setup when I wired krazykarpenter's lights on his 07. We spliced into the headlight wiring, but because the wiring is separate, on his car the lights come on with the daytime running lights, but off for low, on with high beams.

It's not necessarily the "right" way, but it gives you something that works at the end of the day. I need to figure out what I need to change so my lights shut off when the car is off, almost killed my battery on the last dirt drive leaving them on, whoopsie!

(two sets of wiring and relays due to 4x hella 500's)

 

[Chris]

Dan, next time I'm up there I'll have to straighten that out for you. I don't even understand how they stay on with the car off... something has got to be really screwy.

 

[2point5RS_Dan]

Hell if I know, it works good enough gosh dub it

 

[Chris]

It seems like the pre-made hella harness confuses everyone.

I made my own hella harness with my own wire, relay, and switch. And it just worked... So that leads me to believe the hella kit is confusing.

 

[scubiecraig]

Dan, mine doesn't have that "purple bluish" looking wire. What set do you have? My blue is just a short wire that is a ground. However, they supplied me a really long green wire with a fuse inline, and I'm assuming that would be the one I have to tap into the red wire with (red being 12v constant power from the battery). Like I mentioned to Chris, I'm going to try and take a picture(s) tonight assuming there is light left when I get home.... or even a video so I can talk while pointing stuff out. Hella really needs to nail down their instructions. They aren't really all that great.

Subaru's can't be the only negatively switched vehicles, right?

 

[2point5RS_Dan]

The green wire is the one that connects to the headlamp to do the switching. Instead of using the red as your positive connection to the battery, you use blue. My dad just spliced the blue into the red right behind the fuse, probably why my lights come on when the car is off? Like I said, I can do everything else on these cars but I become a drooling idiot when I have to wire something.

Also:

http://www.rallylights.com/hella/AuxLampWiring.aspx

 

[scubiecraig]

So the video I made won't upload from my phone for some reason... keeps crapping out. So here's a couple pics. Not sure if it helps or not...

 

[scubiecraig]

Ok, got the video to finally upload!

http://s4.photobucket.com/albums/y133/craigheon/?action=view&current=photobucket-3509-1329781888671.mp4

 

[Chris]

Ok, so, I've said it before. And I'll spit it out again.

You followed the guide they gave for setting it up in a pos switched car. It will not ever work if you follow that guide.

You need to go from the high beam, to the switch, from the switch, to the trigger wire on the relay. The wire from the relay you have grounded to the fender bolt needs to go to the battery. This way when the switch is on and the high beam is on, it'll complete the circuit from negative to positive to activate the coil.

Also, the wire from the switch to a ground will not make the switch light up. Since it's neg switched it'll need to go to a positive. If the switch has an LED inside of it, it will not work at all, because they don't work on reverse polarity.

You also need to fuse everything coming from the positive on the battery. I can see you do not have a fuse on the sub wire. If that shorts out going through the firewall, you'll set your car on fire.

 

[drvsdwz]

ok, I watched it. This is what I think you need to do. it looks like the blue and yellow are the "relay switch" so you need to run the yellow wire to the splice on the highbeam and leave the blue as is. Then you need to leave the red wire and run the black wire to the toggle switch, and then another wire that goes from the toggle switch back to the hellas.

that should fix your problem.

 

[Chris]

No, actually. You need one of the "relay switch" wires, as you're calling it, to go to positive.

You need positive and negative to turn something on, right?

Right... So when the high beam goes on, that's a negative that's being connected up to the relay. That means you now need to connect a positive to the relay for it to activate.

Since we're getting a negative from the high beam, we need to give the coil a positive. This will come from the battery. Fused, of course.