low/high sametime w/o britebox

[Bill Kemp]

There is now way for the lowbeam wire power to back feed to anything in the car as there is a relay to stop it. I have no idea where you would place this diode if it were necessary, which it isnt.
With the KC relay set up the power for the low beam comes direct from the battery, not the high beam wire. All the high beam power wire does is activate the relay.
Now when you use a high power harness, which is the only way to get full power to the headlights, you are adding another relay into the system that power can not backfeed through. All the diode does in the high power harness is prevent the high beams from going on when you only have the low beams selected. the power strokes guy mentioned that it activated the relay for the low beams but I think it actually powers the low beams. Which isnt a bad thing since the high power wire harness is up to the task since it has heavy duty bulb sockets and heavier duty wire and is isolated from the small guage headlight system by the relays.
The reason Dan had a problem is that the diode was incorrectly installed. As he said.

 

[storlied]

That's what I was trying to say with my relay setup, one relay that's triggered by the low.. which gives full voltage. When high is turned on, triggers a relay that powers both low and high.. which shouldn't be a problem.. no diode needed..

 

[Bill Kemp]

You dont get full voltage through the OEM wires & bulb sockets no matter what you do. If you want full volts available you need heavier wire & sockets.

 

[storlied]

So even though I'm using a relay to give power to the headlights, and not the harness.. that wont matter because of the sockets?

Say I do give up the idea of full voltage through the relay, my relay idea would still work by having the high trigger a relay that gives power to low?..

 

[Bill Kemp]

So even though I'm using a relay to give power to the headlights, and not the harness.. that wont matter because of the sockets?

Not just beacuse of the sockets but because the OEM wires are smaller than the harness wires.

I dont understand your relay idea. I do understand the KC relay diagram and am using it so I know it works. That is the one I would use if I were you. If your idea is the same as the KC diagram than use it & you'll be fine.

 

[oplitic]

There is now way for the lowbeam wire power to back feed to anything in the car as there is a relay to stop it. I have no idea where you would place this diode if it were necessary, which it isnt.

It would be placed like I said, band toward the headlight, before the splice to trigger the relay. I didn't say it was necessary. Just a precaution if you wanted to.

With the KC relay set up the power for the low beam comes direct from the battery, not the high beam wire. All the high beam power wire does is activate the relay.

That's what mines does.

Now when you use a high power harness, which is the only way to get full power to the headlights, you are adding another relay into the system that power can not backfeed through.

You only need the high power harness if you want to put in higher wattage bulbs. I assumed we were talking about regular bulbs, like sylvania halogen, cool blues, silver stars, etc. There's no need for another harness if you're using what I thought cause you'll be using the factory wires to get the power to the headlights that the bulbs are already using just fine.

The reason Dan had a problem is that the diode was incorrectly installed. As he said.

Putting the diode in backwards would make the lows turn the hi's on(reverse of what we are trying to do) and blow the fuse for the lows that way. So like I said, the lights were asking for too much current, blowing the fuse.




BTW, I just looked at the KC diagram, and I have the same thing. (just added a diode that is not necessary)

 

[Bill Kemp]

The high power harness is used to get more voltage to the headlight bulbs. No matter what kind of bulbs you are using. The OEM wires usually give you 12 or less volts while the harness will give you 13 to 14 volts which makes any bulb brighter and is what the bulbs are rated at. In other words, factory wires are marginal and you need a harness to get the full potential from any bulbs.
Because it is heavier wiring and sockets you can run higher wattage bulbs but you dont have to to get the benefits of a harness.

The more I think about Dans problem the less I really know why the fuse blew. It wasent on a harness and it was with the HID. I'm not really sure how that factors in. But the powerstrokes guy doesnt seem to have a problem using it with a harness. I'll let you know how it works out as soon as it warms up enough to mess with it and I get one to plug into my harness.

 

[hunterdan]

When my fuse blew, it was only the low beam, the highs still worked. And it only blew the passengers side fuse... I'm not sure why it blew either. But I do know this... With the high beams on, the HIDs are actually brighter due to the higher voltage from the relay system. So I may down the road reinvest in an upgraded wiring harness again... Though this time I may spend the extra money on the one Aldive uses instead of the APC one.. I need to find a way to get a picture of my lights with all beams on and with just the lows. So far, the KC wiring diagram seems to be the best way to do this mod with a standard harness.

Dan

 

[oplitic]

When my fuse blew, it was only the low beam, the highs still worked. And it only blew the passengers side fuse... I'm not sure why it blew either. But I do know this... With the high beams on, the HIDs are actually brighter due to the higher voltage from the relay system. So I may down the road reinvest in an upgraded wiring harness again... Though this time I may spend the extra money on the one Aldive uses instead of the APC one.. I need to find a way to get a picture of my lights with all beams on and with just the lows. So far, the KC wiring diagram seems to be the best way to do this mod with a standard harness.

Dan

Like I said, my diagram is the same as there's. I jsut never looked at it before cause I didn't see that anyone had tried it.

And like I said, it blew because of the diode, not because it was backwards. Having it the way we were talking about would have blown the hi beam fuse instead cause the current would have been drawing from that wire instead.

 

[oplitic]

The high power harness is used to get more voltage to the headlight bulbs. No matter what kind of bulbs you are using. The OEM wires usually give you 12 or less volts while the harness will give you 13 to 14 volts which makes any bulb brighter and is what the bulbs are rated at. In other words, factory wires are marginal and you need a harness to get the full potential from any bulbs.
Because it is heavier wiring and sockets you can run higher wattage bulbs but you dont have to to get the benefits of a harness.

The more I think about Dans problem the less I really know why the fuse blew. It wasent on a harness and it was with the HID. I'm not really sure how that factors in. But the powerstrokes guy doesnt seem to have a problem using it with a harness. I'll let you know how it works out as soon as it warms up enough to mess with it and I get one to plug into my harness.

If the wires were only rated at 12 volts and could only give the lights 12 volts, then as soon as you turned the car on, and then turned on the headlights, the wires would fry. When the car is on the alternator takes over and charges the electrical system up to 14.4 volts. The whole system runs off the same source, which in turn puts 14.4 volts to every wire unless there is some sort of regultor. Which I'm pretty sure they wouldn't do. Why would they need to? Today after my isntalls at the shop I'm going to be testing the wires to see how much voltage they are actually drawing and then see how much actually current they are drawing too. I'm going to be doing the relay diagram I drew up so while I'm in there I'll check it all.

 

[Bill Kemp]

Here is a link that explains the volts much better than I do.
http://www.rallylights.com/other/wiring.htm

 

[Bill Kemp]

I went to RadioShack & got a IN4004 Diode. (1amp 400volt) ($1.)
I pluged it into the unused passenger side headlamp plug w/the band on the diode on the low beam side. Just like the pics in the powerstroke post.
It work just like advertized. High & Low on at the same time.
While doing it I realized that it is indeed just turning on the low beam relay in the heavy duty harness. So the amp load is negligible.
Remember, you do need a harness to do this mod. All total its half the price of the bright box and you have a harness which IMO is very desirable.

 

[hunterdan]

Thanks Bill for trying this out. Eventually I will switch back over to the heavy duty harness and do this mod. This will help eliminate all the wires I have going on under the hood.

Dan

 

[Bill Kemp]

Did the diode install and took a 60 mile round trip tonight in the country.
The high w/low beams works great. No problems with the set up.
I will say that it makes the high beam seem less bright. My vision is directed to the brightest portion of the beam pattern. Before when the high beams were on & the lows were off I was looking further down the road. Just sort of following the light. Now, with the low beams staying on and the bright spot still just in front of the veh., I dont seem to see as far down the road.
Of course that does change when the PIAA 80 driving lights are used w/the high beams. When I use those there is enough light put out past the low beam pattern that makes it really light down the road and directs my vision further down the road.
IMO If you have driving lights I would say it's a good mod. If you don't, than just do the fogs w/high beams mod.

 

[oplitic]

Here is a link that explains the volts much better than I do.
http://www.rallylights.com/other/wiring.htm

I don;t mena to be argumantative, but I need to prove my point as to what I'm basing this info off of and where I got it.

First off, I'm not getting info from going online and looking things up from people I don't know. I went to school for car electronics and am MECP certified. I went to Mobile Dynamics in Thornhill, Ontario, Canada. (that was a long drive with my mounty, lol) And I work in the industry at a car audio shop called Car Tunes etc. in Manchester, NH. But here's a wiki that says the same thing I'm saying.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_battery

Second of all, vehicles run at 14.4 volts if the alternator is running correctly. 13.5 would be when the battery is dieing or needs to be charged up, or the alternator is not doing it's job correctly.

A battery is not rated at 13.5, here's why:
A battery has 6 cells in it. Each one carries 2.1 volts when fully charged, technically giving it 12.6 all together(we say 12 volt cause we round it). When the alternator is on, that number jumps up to 2.4 volts per cell giving it 14.4 volts (some people argue 14.5 cause it's always being charged up {reference: http://mobile.jlaudio.com/products_amps.php?amp_id=398 wattage specs}). This is so it can run everything that guy is talking about in the car. Without it going up, the cars lights will be dim and when you press on the gas the lights will brighten up cause you're creating more energy. A car can work with a battery between 13.2-14.4 volts, but the less volts it has, the farther along it's lifetime is and the closer you are to needing a new battery. Below 13.2 it's very unlikely the car will turn over.

So knowing that, you can see how the wires in the car have to be able to handle the power being put to them. Ford and every other car manufacturer have already thought about how big the wires have to be in relation to the length to carry the amount of power it needs to anything in the car. If they didn't then when you rev the engine your lights would get brighter, your heat or a/c would blow harder, etc, just like when you're battery is dieing.

Now if you're putting in higher wattage bulbs, like he was saying, than, yes, you do need to upgrade the harness. The 9007 bulb runs at 65 watts hi beam and 55 watts low beam. So:

65w/12.6= ~5.16 amps
55w/12.6= ~4.37 amps

65w/14.4= ~4.51 amps
55w/14.4= ~3.82 amps

The most drawn is 5.16 on each circuit. Each headlamp has a 10 amp fuse in, which means they gave it a big enough wire to supply it with 10 amps worth of current draw. More than enough current to power the light without frying the wires. So just like the guy in the article says to do, Ford chose a bigger wire to allow an adeuquate margin for safety.

Enought writing for me for now. Sorry it's so long. I can't shorten up epxlanations. lol.

 

[oplitic]

Did the diode install and took a 60 mile round trip tonight in the country.
The high w/low beams works great. No problems with the set up.
I will say that it makes the high beam seem less bright. My vision is directed to the brightest portion of the beam pattern. Before when the high beams were on & the lows were off I was looking further down the road. Just sort of following the light. Now, with the low beams staying on and the bright spot still just in front of the veh., I dont seem to see as far down the road.
Of course that does change when the PIAA 80 driving lights are used w/the high beams. When I use those there is enough light put out past the low beam pattern that makes it really light down the road and directs my vision further down the road.
IMO If you have driving lights I would say it's a good mod. If you don't, than just do the fogs w/high beams mod.

This kind of thing happened when I put el glow gauges in. The light was so bright that my eyes would try to focus on them instead of the road and I couldn't see as far down, needless to say, I took them out. It's weird how our eyes mess with us so easily. lol.

 

[hunterdan]

I have to say that I did measure the voltage at the plug before and after the upgraded harness install. With the stock harness it was about 12.5 volts, while the battery was sitting at 14.4 or so volts at idle. With the upgraded harness, I was looking at over 14 volts at idle to the harness.

Dan

 

[oplitic]

I have to say that I did measure the voltage at the plug before and after the upgraded harness install. With the stock harness it was about 12.5 volts, while the battery was sitting at 14.4 or so volts at idle. With the upgraded harness, I was looking at over 14 volts at idle to the harness.

Dan

So it's getting full voltage. I ended up riding wiht my boss yesterday so didn't get to measure my wires. But like I said, the wires are getting full voltage.

 

[hunterdan]

Its getting full voltage when used with the upgraded harness, not with the stock harness.

Dan

 

[oplitic]

you jsut said with the stock harness it was sitting at 12.5 and 14.4 at idle. That's full voltage. You can't get more voltage than the battery puts out.