Drawing Too Much Power...

[AznVirus]

need help with electrical system and i want to fix it as soon as possible. ok here goes...

put strobes in my car and wired it to my shifter light. that worked out fine. next, i put neon lights and wired it to the same shifter light. blew a fuse and so i replaced the fuse, wired the neons to my brake lights. everything works when i turn on the parking lights, but my gauge lights are dim. my petentiometer doesnt work either, the thing on the left side of the gauge cluster where you can control how dim or bright you want the gauge lights to be, it doesnt even light up. i checked the plugs and everything is in and checked all the fuses, they are all fine, everything works except my gauge lights are dim and the petentiometer doesnt do anything. how do i go about fixing this? somebody told me to just wire a relay from the battery. would i send the power from the relay to the strobes and neons? much help needed thanks.

heres a simple diagram i drew to help understand what it looks like.
http://www.geocities.com/aznvirus25/index.html

[MauiBlueGRide]

Dude - definetly get some relays and wire them up that way - if you aren't sure how best to get someone to help you don't wanna mess your wiring up man.....
Chris

[AznVirus]

now my interior lighting doesnt work... gauge lights, shifter light, hvac, radio, petentiometer. dont know why, i think its my petentiometer that isnt working, is there a fuse for it? anyone know how to fix this problem?

[MauiBlueGRide]

Not sure about the 95s, I'd start pulling fuses till I found a burnt one, as for the lights, seriously, I'd disconnect them and get some help running a wire from the battery fusing it at the battery, and then hookding relays up to the devices that are to trigger the lights and hooking them up that way - 50x safer than powering them off of the factory wiring.
Chris

[AznVirus]

where would i find the fuse for the interior lighting, such as the gauges and such. i checked all my in-dash fuses and they are all fine. there are 3 different fuse boxes in the engine bay. dont know which one i should check. would there be one for the petentiometer?

[AznVirus]

does anyone know how to read a relay? if so, heres a link where you can get a picture of what it looks like. im going to wire it from the battery. where do i put the ground wire, wire from the battery, and the wire i want the power to send to?

http://www.geocities.com/aznvirus25/problem.html

please help! :o

[MauiBlueGRide]

Here is how to use it.
Lets say for example - you have your light ground wire grounded, now you just need 12V here is what you do.

1. Run a FUSED wire from the battery + and connect it to Pin 30
2. Connect the + wire from the light to pin 87
3. Connect a constant ground to pin 85
4. Connect the + wire from whatever wire you are connecting to pin 86

How do they work?

85 and 86 are your coil wires. When they get + and - on each side the relay contact closes and makes a connection between 30 and 87.
It takes a lot less power to close the relay than it does to power the light. So instead of pulling all that power from say a brake light - it pulls it directly from the battery.

Hope that helps!

Chris

[AznVirus]

Originally posted by MauiBlueGRide
Here is how to use it.

2. Connect the + wire from the light to pin 87


Chris

what light are you talking about? any light that requires 12V?

[MauiBlueGRide]

Ya - I thought you were hooking lights up - but whatever you have that needs 12v+ hook up to that wire.
Chris

[AznVirus]

i ran the + wire from the strobe lights to a switch. so do i just run the wire from the switch to which pin?

Originally posted by MauiBlueGRide


1. Run a FUSED wire from the battery + and connect it to Pin 30

Chris

i understand this...

Originally posted by MauiBlueGRide


2. Connect the + wire from the light to pin 87

Chris

so do i just connect the wire from the switch to 87?

Originally posted by MauiBlueGRide


3. Connect a constant ground to pin 85

Chris

i understand this.

Originally posted by MauiBlueGRide


4. Connect the + wire from whatever wire you are connecting to pin 86

Chris

what does this mean? is this just an extra pin where it sends 12V to?

[MauiBlueGRide]

Hold up - are you using a switch or relay?
I thought you wanted something like this to happen:

Light in car to come on when say your headlights are on.
In this case you find a wire that has 12v+ when the lights are on and connect that wire to the pin 87.....
So when the lights are on one side of the relay's coil is always at ground, and the other side get 12v+ when the lights are on, flipping the "switch" (basically what a relay is)

If your just hooking up a switch then:
Ground your strobe permanetly.
Run a fused wire from the battery to one side of the switch and connect the strobe's + wire to the other side and your done.
Chris

[AznVirus]

here, check if this is ok. thanks.

http://www.geocities.com/aznvirus25/problem.html