LED bar install

[Stano7]

Hi all, question for you. I recently installed a nilight LED bar on my I40L. Seems to work fine until I get moving, it then dims. I connected both the positive and the negative to the same battery. I noticed in a install video I remember seeing some time ago the guy connected the positive to one battery and the negative to another battery in the chain. Is this the problem? I also connected the relay to the frame. Should this be on one of the battery terminals? I'm obviously not a pro but am enjoying learning about this. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[ATrain]

Originally Posted by Stano7

Hi all, question for you. I recently installed a nilight LED bar on my I40L. Seems to work fine until I get moving, it then dims. I connected both the positive and the negative to the same battery. I noticed in a install video I remember seeing some time ago the guy connected the positive to one battery and the negative to another battery in the chain. Is this the problem? I also connected the relay to the frame. Should this be on one of the battery terminals? I'm obviously not a pro but am enjoying learning about this. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

This configuration is wrong and generally you do not want to connect directly to the batteries. When you connect to individual(s) batteries, it can create an uneven wear over time on that specific battery, and it is not "key-switched", meaning it can drain your cart if you leave it on.

I'd imagine the dimming is because when you accelerate, your cart is drawing a lot of power from the batteries and it's causing a voltage sag for whatever battery(s) you've connected to.

Is this a 12v light bar? If it is, you should connect to the 12v DC/DC reducer that's built into the cart. The reducer takes 48v and puts out a consistent 12v.

[Stano7]

Thanks ATrain. I believe it is 12V, yes. Where is the cart’s reducer and how do I go about wiring it it? The harness came with a relay, do I still need it if I go the route you suggest? Here the light bar I got:

Nilight 1PCS 20 Inch 126W Spot Flood Combo LED Light Bars Off-Road Light Mounting Bracket Horizontal Bar Tube Clamp With Off Road Wiring Harness- 2 Leads, 2 Years Warranty, Model: ZH063 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074CS4NXM...ing=UTF8&psc=1

[ATrain]

Yes, you still should. The relay...their description of it doesn't make sense. I'd imagine you don't even need to hook up the relay because of the key switch.

Out of the reducer, which is that little vertically mounted box by the batteries, there is a bundle of wires. There's a thick red & black wire, which are you 12v hookups you'll want to tap into.

You can either tap in to those two wires near the reducer/batteries or under the dash by the little fuses. Either way you'll want to make sure your line has a fuse in it as well.

[Stano7]

Thanks again ATrain. So I’ll need to take off the battery connectors and put wire tap connectors in their place then splice into the red and black coming out of the reducer correct? The relay wire has a fuse, can I connect the relay and count on that as my fuse? Or should I forget the relay and add a fuse? If so how do u do that and what size fuse? 15A?

[Stano7]

Is the on board relay the switch box with run switch? The one with the diagnostic plug?

[Stano7]

Will this work?

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[ATrain]

Yes I actually think that fuse thing does work. You just may not be able to put the little cover back on the fuses (nbd)...not sure though. Somebody else bought one of those for their ICON and uses it.

Looking at your picture, it looks like the fuse is in-line and not connected to the relay...meaning you could potentially just cut the wires after the fuse, but honestly I'd have to see it closer to figure out why there's a relay in the first place. Looking at the Amazon specs, it says it takes 12v-24v, which makes me think the relay is a simple switching mechanism to ensure a range of voltage or something...so might be worth leaving it since it's not advertised as a an extra included item and doesn't really hurt anything.

Either way, the take away is you're much better to connect to the DC reducer than directly to the batteries and you want a fuse. The primary reason for the fuse is if you wire it wrong and short the batteries, it can have huge amperage draws and the thinner wire will be the most resistive and will catch fire. If you had a really large wire, it would probably make the batteries explode lol...so don't underestimate a fuse's ability to prevent possible screwups.

If your light bar is in the front, I'd definitely tap into the fuses in the front to save time. You really don't even need to be in the fuse panel because your wire has the fuse already, but it would make getting the 12v+ easier and double fuses. If it's in the rear near the batteries, you can use these taps https://www.amazon.com/Nilight-Termi.../dp/B07CP987BN directly off the reducer.

In this thread, I took some pictures about how I tapped into the front on one of my carts. At the time, I wish I knew about that stupid fuse tap thing instead I tried to keep buying random wire ends to see if I could get one to fit in the empty slot.

[Stano7]

You are awesome ATrain, thanks. Bar is up front so I’ll probably just use the fuse splitter thing. That takes care of the red wire, what do I do about the black? Ground? Does it matter which fuse I tap into?

[ATrain]

Originally Posted by Stano7

You are awesome ATrain, thanks. Bar is up front so I’ll probably just use the fuse splitter thing. That takes care of the red wire, what do I do about the black? Ground? Does it matter which fuse I tap into?

It doesn't matter which fuse because that device forks the fuses, so they're still independent. You might pull a few fuses and try and find the one for the lights and use that, so if somehow it ever comes loose you'll know right away and it's only the lights.

In the thread I linked (last sentence of previous post), look at the first picture regarding ground.