Daylight running lights

[4bye4]

I thought I would fit a set of daylight running lights to the patrol, as I don’t like running with my lights on all the time, but I do recognise that you are a lot more noticeable with a light showing in the daytime. Reading up on the legalities of the system, it appears that the running lights must turn off when your headlights are on, even though I have seen many cars at night with both showing. Anyway, I don’t want to attract the attention of the police I figured I would wire them as per the book so to speak.

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I purchased a kit and installed it according to instructions. Great, the lights came on with the ignition and went off when the park lights were turned on. This was good for 10 days.

Started up to go home from work on Wednesday and noticed that only the right light was working. Figured it was a loose wire or something so decided to check it out when I got home. Half way home, pulled up behind another car and noticed (in the reflection on his boot) the left light was flashing intermittently. By the time I got home it had gone out completely and there was a burning smell coming from under the bonnet. Opened the bonnet and found the control box supplied in the kit had melted. Checked my wiring was correct and headed for the shop I bought it from.
Installed the new kit and off we went again. I did notice that the control box did get pretty hot though and asked the shop I bought the kit from if this was normal. Got a bit of a story about the kit being for cold climates and that they had had a few that had failed like mine.

As I had already spent a fair bit of time on this, tapping into my wiring harness, running wires to the lights and drilling holes in the roo bar, I decided to stay with the lights but to go back to a less high tech system.

I removed the controller and replaced it with a standard normally closed auto relay. I wired the lights through the normally closed contact to switched battery picked up from the windscreen wiper harness. When the ignition is on the lights come on. I then ran a wire from the park light battery to one side of the coil and earthed the other side of the coil. Turn on park lights, the relay operates and turns the running lights off.

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All works Ok and the relay does not get as hot as the control box used to.

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[threedogs]

I have a similar set but am mounting them on my roof rack more as clearance lights than DRL.
Plus mine are amber as well so the will be used as indicators as well.
Id be wary of that cold climate story, maybe mount that control box where it can get some
air on it to cool it'
You are very visible now looks great

[JoeG]

Hi you have done well
Looks good too!
Regards
Joe

[4bye4]

Thanks JoeG. TD thanks and the cold climate thing had my BS detector running full throttle, anyway it no longer has a control box, it has a relay. I chose the normally closed relay because thye majority of running is in the daytime so the relay only energises during nighttime or dark driving.

[4bye4]

TD not sure about running lights on the roof rack. Hard to interpret what the law is re lights at times. Also varies from state to state and I think sometimes depends on what sort of day the officer is having.

[the evil twin]

Legalities...
After market DRL's are required to turn off when vehicle lights are illuminated
Manuf are exempt IE if their DRL's are wired to stay on then that is OK
DRL's are not legal on the roof rack or if they are too close together on the front of the vehicle but "Clearance Lamps" are if the comply with the ADR (can't be arrsed looking it up but i think the only issue would be dazzling oncoming vehicles which is why Fogs are illegal unless it is foggy... or you are a total wanker wannabee in a Ricer!!!)

Cold Climate Controller... total bullshit

Installation comments... nicely done mate, looks the schizz

[BigRAWesty]

What a shoit about the controller. Totally bs I say but anyway.

Good move on the really and a very simple setup.

A couple of questions.
They look very bright in the pic, nearly light bar bright. Are they going to dazel oncoming traffic of is it just the picture?

Also why did you wire into the wiper? Was that the closest ignition energised feed you could find?

[the evil twin]

Got bored so looked up ADR's and IMHO

Forward facing clearance lights on roof rack, pantech etc - illegal on a width less than 2100mm wide, mandatory otherwise
DRL's on roof rack - illegal as DRL cannot be higher than 1500mm from road surface
DRL horizontal spacing - must be minimum 600mm apart and no more than 400mm from extreme edge of vehicle
DRL brightness - more than 400 and less than 800 Cd

[4bye4]

Got bored so looked up ADR's and IMHO

Forward facing clearance lights on roof rack, pantech etc - illegal on a width less than 2100mm wide, mandatory otherwise
DRL's on roof rack - illegal as DRL cannot be higher than 1500mm from road surface
DRL horizontal spacing - must be minimum 600mm apart and no more than 400mm from extreme edge of vehicle
DRL brightness - more than 400 and less than 800 Cd

Yep they are within those specs. More luck than good planning though.

[4bye4]

What a shoit about the controller. Totally bs I say but anyway.

Good move on the really and a very simple setup.

A couple of questions.
They look very bright in the pic, nearly light bar bright. Are they going to dazel oncoming traffic of is it just the picture?

Also why did you wire into the wiper? Was that the closest ignition energised feed you could find?

Hi Kallen - yea they are brighter in the picture than in reality, they won't dazzle. You couldn't drive by them at night, maybe around the camp site slowly but not bright enough for road work.
And yes to the wiper feed. Didn't know where else to pick up ignition switched live without going through the firewall. Easy to do - just roll the insulation cover back, strip about 6 to 8mm off the blue power feed wire. Wrap your wire ( in my case red) around the feed wire and solder. I stuck a bit of cardboard under the join to solder it so I didn't melt any other insulation. Then wrap the join with insulation, I used that rubber insulation tape that sticks to itself with a single wrap of sparky tape over the top. Then let the insulating cove roll back down over the join. I also have an inline fuse 5 Amp in the feed wire. The lights are rated at 2 Amp and the wiper motor has a 15 Amp fuse in the feed. So all things being equal in the case of a fault the 5 amp should go before the 15 A wiper fuse.