Adding a strobe light

stealth71c

Howdy. I'm new to the forum and hope someone can help me. I'm currently in the middle of a fairly involved refurbishment of our 1992 CC DS gas. We use this cart at an airport, and for safety purposes, I'd like to add a small amber strobe light.

Can anyone with some electrical knowledge offer some tips as to how to wire one in. I suppose the easiest way is to run pos and neg right to the battery with a simple toggle switch on the dash. My fear however is someone will forget about it and leave it on, thereby draining the battery. I suppose it could also be wired into the key switch somehow, except no one ever turns that off either.

What I'd really like to do is set it up so the light is only on while the accelerator pedal is depressed. Is there any way to make that happen by wiring it a certain way? Any help is appreciated.

BGW

__________________
This advertising will not be shown in this way to registered members.
Register your free account today and become a member on Buggies Gone Wild Golf Cart Forum

invalidsession

Run your positive feed to the strobe via a relay and fuse through the LARGE switched starter solenoid connection. That will automatically activate the strobe any time the gas pedal is activated.

Chris.

craig tn

I would recommend using a LED warning light over the strobe. They do cost a little more but pull less amps. As far as wiring you can put a relay in the line that is activated by the pedal micro switch. This will allow the power to come from the battery and not the oem wiring harness.
The green wire off relay would be tapped into the energized side of micro switch when pedal is pushed.

All grounds need to be wired back to the negative on the battery.

Attached Images

relay-diagram.gif (17.8 KB, 18 views)

stealth71c

Very cool, thanks to both of you, I think you've given me some ideas to work with. Yeah I'm considering an LED beacon. I just bought one the other day for something else. It only uses 0.8 amps, but it sure is bright.

mr2nr

Why do you need to run the ground back to the batt.? If you have a good ground through the body does it matter? (Coming from an all metal 84 owner :))

craig tn

Some carts do not have frames grounded to the battery.

ckiguy

most off electric issues are ground related. so iff you have 4 grounds to the sourse, you have 4 weak spots. pwr finds the quickests and easiest way to go. so if you have a 10 gauge and a 18 gauge wirem it will go to the 10 first! less ressistance!

mr2nr

So if I have a 10 ft 18 ga. wired to the batt. against a 2 inch 20 ga. wire grounded to the frame which will win (find ground first)?

True you might have hidden corrosion but I think I will stick with chassy grounding instead of running a whole different wire with my full metal cart if it's going to find ground its going to do it closer to the accessory more times than not. BTW I have wire brushed the ground strap attach point and have a brand new ground strap sealing it with elc coating and LPS3.

ckiguy

you will be fine to ground your wire to the chasis. i think the 18 gauge is thin, but if thats what is coming out of the light, run it to a ring term. make sure you have clean the corroision off the mating area. also in case you dont see it, or you are unsure you can either make a ground from some #4-#2 wire and lugs, and run it fom the frame to the batttery. gives it a good known ground. this way you only have to run a hot wire to your pwr source. cleaner install too!