Wheel lights fuse blown

[McLeod Crouch]

Hey guys, I installed wheel lights last night. They worked fine turned them off turned them on but i go out tonight turn them on and a half second later they cut off. Checked the fuse its blown. The wiring looks fine not pinched or anything. The instructions state to use 16-18 gauge wire and 5A fuse so i got a add a fuse and tapped in to the “DSM” 10A fuse in the fuse box on the driver side. I know my ground is not great i got tired of looking for somewhere to ground and just self tapped it by the passenger floor board. Could the ground be the issue or the add a fuse? Anyone know a better place to ground?

 

[wjburken]

Hey guys, I installed wheel lights last night. They worked fine turned them off turned them on but i go out tonight turn them on and a half second later they cut off. Checked the fuse its blown. The wiring looks fine not pinched or anything. The instructions state to use 16-18 gauge wire and 5A fuse so i got a add a fuse and tapped in to the “DSM” 10A fuse in the fuse box on the driver side. I know my ground is not great i got tired of looking for somewhere to ground and just self tapped it by the passenger floor board. Could the ground be the issue or the add a fuse? Anyone know a better place to ground?View attachment 378657View attachment 378658

Some more information/specs about the lights you installed would be helpful.

A few basic questions….
How long of a wire run do you have? The longer the wire, the larger the wire that is needed to not have excessive voltage drop.
Are you using 18ga or 16ga?
Have you measured the current draw with a multi-meter? Voltage?

 

[McLeod Crouch]

Some more information/specs about the lights you installed would be helpful.

A few basic questions….
How long of a wire run do you have? The longer the wire, the larger the wire that is needed to not have excessive voltage drop.
Are you using 18ga or 16ga?
Have you measured the current draw with a multi-meter? Voltage?

They don’t have the wattage posted anywhere only 12V. They are 4 LED ring lights. The kit has 4 separate lines for each ring that are about 8 feet long to a little box that separates to a little switch and then to positive/negative wires. I had to add maybe 4 feet of 16 gauge positive wire to get it to run from the passenger door to driver side fuse box. My multimeter plug things broke so i’ll have to pick another one.

 

[McLeod Crouch]

Some more information/specs about the lights you installed would be helpful.

A few basic questions….
How long of a wire run do you have? The longer the wire, the larger the wire that is needed to not have excessive voltage drop.
Are you using 18ga or 16ga?
Have you measured the current draw with a multi-meter? Voltage?

the ground shouldn't blow the fuse right? Should i up it to 7.5 AMP fuse instead of 5?

 

[McLeod Crouch]

Update- I changed the fuse out to a 10A (dont have another 5A) they are working fine but i still don't understand why it blew the first time? Would keeping the 10A fuse be bad?

 

[wjburken]

Update- I changed the fuse out to a 10A (dont have another 5A) they are working fine but i still don't understand why it blew the first time? Would keeping the 10A fuse be bad?

The purpose of the fuse is to protect the wiring and device that is downstream of it. If the device manufacturer says 5A for the fuse, I’d be leery of running with a 10A fuse until I understood what was going on.

 

[Geotrash]

Update- I changed the fuse out to a 10A (dont have another 5A) they are working fine but i still don't understand why it blew the first time? Would keeping the 10A fuse be bad?

I agree with Wade - bad idea to run the 10A fuse if it's not what the system calls for. And we need to know the rated current draw on each of the light rings. 5A seems a little low, even for LEDs, but to run a bigger fuse, you need to run the appropriate gauge wire as well. Otherwise:

 

[Joseph Garcia]

The gauge wire that you are using is fine for LEDs, as their current draw is fairly low. I agree with others above, in that you need to determine why you are blowing out a 5A fuse as recommended by the manufacturer.

 

[exp500]

Reread your instructions- was it 5amp fuse per wheel?

 

[McLeod Crouch]

Reread your instructions- was it 5amp fuse per wheel?

No it was pretty simple stupid instructions. Plug the 4 wheel lights to a control box that breaks off to a positive and negative cable. Then as a “Pro-Tip” use a add a fuse to attach a 5A fuse. Im going to look over all my wiring to look for tears or anything out of the ordinary that i overlooked before. Also i have a multimeter, how can i test with that?