HELP! Electrical Problem...

[dmasini]

You guys have been a lot of help to me in the past so I'm hoping you can help me on this as well. I got a pair of Hella 500 Fog lights the other week and put them on the X with no problems. I drive over to this resturant to get some lunch and when I go back to the X the battery is completly drained. I figured it was a ground problem with my foglight wiring so after I got a jump I took out the fuse for the Hella's, problem solved.

Well I took a voltmeter to all the wiring to find where the leaking was and couldn't find any unusual power spikes in the wires. The only thing I noticed was that with the X off and the switch off for the Hella's I'm getting like a 0.07v reading on the wire going from the switch to the parking lamp. Would that be normal? I wouldn't figure such a little ammount of power would drain the battery in an hour. Any suggestions at all on what else I can do to solve this problem??? It's driving me up the wall that I can't figure this out! Thanks in advance for all the help!

 

[GR899V8]

I'm confused here, you say you have a ground problem with the lights? If the ground connection was bad, they woldn't work, and if the hot wire went to ground the fuse should blow.

The voltage you are reading is probably just stray or back-feeding, I wouldn't worry about that.

I would look closer at the battery and the connections made. Put your volt meter on the battery (with the X and lites off) and see if it slowly but constantly drops, indicating you are using power when you don't want to. Good luck, let's get it figured out!

(And you need fog lites going to lunch?)

 

[dmasini]

GR899V8, well I'm not 100% sure it was a ground problem... I pretty much didn't know what it was, I just knew it was draining my battery and it had to do with the fog light woring. The current fuse probably wouldn't blow, it requires a 15 amp fuse but I have a 20 amp in their now. Didn't think that would matter to much. You think I should go ahead and put a 15amp in at this point? Wouldn't it probably just blow anyway?

I figured that ammount of voltage wasn't a problem considering if I hold the positive and negative testers on the voltmeter then I generate about 0.03v.

I'm pretty sure the battery will go down... When the battery drained it was just sitting in the parking lot with everything off. And the fog lights weren't on when I drove it over their.

Hahaha, that was just the time I was installing them. Remember, fog lights are cool anytime!

 

[GR899V8]

Were you blowing 15 amp fuses? If so, you probably do have some sort of problem with it drawing too much power. Either too much load (the lights) or like you mentioned, a short from the hot power lead to ground. If the hot power lead went to ground, it would a) blow the 15 or 20 amp fuse, b) melt the wire if the wire can not handle 20 amps of power. The fuse must be the weakest link, or wires will melt if they are sized for the smaller fuse. All the fuse is there for is to protect the wires.

If your connections are tight at the battery, do you think the battery is going south? Is it the original battery? You leave your stereo on "idle" (150 watts) while having lunch? Attaboy!!

How do you like the lights so far, are you happy with the light output?

 

[Bill Kemp]

Did you disconnect the battery when you installed the lights? Maby not get it tight on the reconnect? If you installed the lights per the instructions when the OEM lights are off you should not get any battery drain. I'd check the battery connections, good time to clean them...

 

[dmasini]

Yeah, I disconnected the battery before installing... When I was testing the drain last night and going through the wires I found that one light doesn't come on everytime. The first time I just gave it a couple taps and it flickered on but I turned it off then on again and tapping wouldn't work. So I think I'm going to cut that wire out and run another to see if that loose connection is the problem? Any other suggestions?? Thanks guys for all your help! Can't wait to blind a couple Honda's coming in the other direction at night now! hahaha

 

[JMan93]

when i installed my xenon bulbs the high beams would only work on one side but the low beams would work. all i did was take a drive to the auto zone and buy some new bulb sockets. it fixed the problem with it lighting up but i have no idea about your battery problem. hope i helped.