Flood lights

[chiro99]

Just wondering if I have the right idea? I have a JD 4210.
Jd has left wiring for flood light attachments, one pos. and one neg. I ran 18 Gauge wire from the hot side to a on/off toggle switch with an inline 20 amp. fuse. I want to put two 85 watt flood lights on my rops. Can I run the pos and neg leads in series or do I do somthing else. Any input, Please...

 

[Anonymous Poster]

First thing you might want to do is increase the wire size from 18 to 14, those lights pull better than 7 amps each, so the total load will be 14-15 amps.
Assuming they have 1 black and 1 red wire, connect both black wires to ground and both red wires to the wire coming from your switch. You want the lights in paralell, not series.

 

[BB_TX]

I agree with Franz. According to my wire charts, 18 ga PVC wire is only rated for about 15 amps. You can go to about 20 amps with Teflon wire. But either wire will be quite warm at that current. I am guessing you used PVC. 14 ga PVC is good for 27 amps and will not get appreciably warm at 20.
And as Fran said, be sure you wire the lamps in parallel, not series, or you will only get half brightness.

 

[Darren]

Hella makes a flood light that has a housing that looks like any other on the market except it's a dual bulb unit. You'd only need one of those. A.W. Direct sells them.

 

[grandad]

Not to mention that, when wired in series, one burned-out light leaves an open circuit for both... just like those danged Christmas lights!

 

[DaleW]

You may want to reconsider just putting a switch in to control the lights. You will be switching an incandescent load which has a very high initial current draw. This could burn out the switch in a hurry.
Better bet is to install a relay to the lights and control the relay with the switch. High current is handled by the relay and the relatively low draw of the of the relay coil is handled by the switch.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

You should use a relay for safety's sake rather than run the amperage for the lights thru the toggle switch. This way the switch just has to provide a very low amperage to activate the relay. The larger gauge supply wiring will go to the relay and to the lights. Install the fuse (or circuit breaker) between the 12v supply and the relay.

I use
www.delcity.net
www.waytek.com
www.the12volt.com
for supplies and info