Thread: Wiring driving lights to high beam...

Not sure about wire colours, but can you explain the wiring more? Are you using relays and not just high beam wire into LED bar?

I tapped high beam wire off the back of the light itself at the front, but that worked well in my Disco as the battery is centimetres away from the light itself.

Originally Posted by LoveB

where do I tap the wire from? I tried to tap it onto the grey and blue wire (which is what I read as the high beam from forums) and all it seems to have done is blown the high beam off my bulb. lol the low beam still works but high beam on that side atleast doesnt. I'm guessing (more like hoping) that its just the bulb.

but yes, during that time I could not for the life of me get the LED bar to work with the high beams. Is there anything specific I need to be doing?

I can look at mine tonight if needed - but the relay question above is critical.

the bar itself came with a wiring kit which has a fuse and relay. which is currently tapped into the battery and operated by a separate switch. But as I'm wanting to keep it legal I need to have the switch to operate as an 'on and off' but with the bar only being able to turn on along with the high beams.

I'm just not sure how to run the feed from the high beam to the light bar wiring in order to get it to go on along with the high beams.

Originally Posted by LoveB

the bar itself came with a wiring kit which has a fuse and relay. which is currently tapped into the battery and operated by a separate switch. But as I'm wanting to keep it legal I need to have the switch to operate as an 'on and off' but with the bar only being able to turn on along with the high beams.

I'm just not sure how to run the feed from the high beam to the light bar wiring in order to get it to go on along with the high beams.

You need to splice or T-piece the high beam wire so it is always connected to both the headlight and relay at the same time.

Am I on the right track now?

yeah. Where is the best place to splice it? I was thinking the wire that runs along the guards. but when I tried that, even with the high beams on the light bar would only turn on via its original switch. having the bright on had nothing to do with it... and it blew my bulb lol

Originally Posted by LoveB

where do I tap the wire from? I tried to tap it onto the grey and blue wire (which is what I read as the high beam from forums) and all it seems to have done is blown the high beam off my bulb. lol the low beam still works but high beam on that side atleast doesnt. I'm guessing (more like hoping) that its just the bulb.

but yes, during that time I could not for the life of me get the LED bar to work with the high beams. Is there anything specific I need to be doing?

Originally Posted by LoveB

yeah. Where is the best place to splice it? I was thinking the wire that runs along the guards. but when I tried that, even with the high beams on the light bar would only turn on via its original switch. having the bright on had nothing to do with it... and it blew my bulb lol

You're gunna have to expand on the above - its a little hard to understand

You need to splice into the high beam feed (back of the headlights is an easy to access location) and use this to power the coil of the relay - as you're running an separate switch for the led bar, the high beam power feed should also go through this switch before going to the relay coil. The other side of the relay coil then goes to earth.

This means that both the separate switch and the cars high beam have to be on to get power to the relay. You also need FUSED battery power to one side of the relay's contacts, the other side of the contacts goes to the positive of the light bar, then through the light bar to earth.

Sounds like your splice connector may have severed your high beam wire - assume only the high beam you tried to get a feed off has gone AWOL?

To be clear, the standard set-up that meets regulations/laws is:

Cabin switch on - LED bar will come on when you hit high beam. LED bar will go off when you turn off high beam.
Cabin switch off - LED bar will never come on, even when high beams are on.

With the standard set-up, you can never have the LED bar on without high beams.

The cabin switch should really be called an "off" switch for when you have high beams on.

Wired correctly, I'm not sure why you would blow up a bulb.
And sorry I'm not sure where is the most common place to splice the wire on a Defender. Shouldn't matter where, but my guess would be to have relay close to battery and wire around that.

Nevermind... I've figured it out..


I blew the fuse for the LHS high beam.. I wired the power from the high beam into the switch (FAIL) lol

I've since wired the power wire from the high beam into the power wire of the LED bar which goes through the relay - fuse then to the switch. So without the switch set to 'ON' the lightbar will never turn on. Also it will only turn on when the high beams are on. I think its wired correctly now. As in you cant turn it on on its own...

the 10A fuse seemed to pop after the led bar turned on though. I've put a 20A fuse there now and it seems to have solved it. Did any of you have to step up the fuse?