Rear work light wiring

[Duges]

Any of you home auto electricians able to give advice on wiring up a rear work light? Where to pick up power etc...much appreciated.

[Norm C]

Duges, I'd recommend putting one or more power points in the tub under the canopy. I've got three points wired direct to the deep cycle system. This way, you can run anything you like. I plug in the fridge, air compressor, lights and anything else 12 volt as required.
I mounted the power points onto a piece of 12 mm ply (covered with marine carpet since I had some) and bolted it to the tub through holes left when the sports bar was removed.

[Duges]

Yeah, I plan on doing that at the same time thanks Norm. This will be a permanent external halogen lamp that I hope to be able to operate from a switch on the dash somewhere.

[bundyoutlaw]

If your running 12v to the tray for lights, it would be the perfect time to do the power points in the tray also. just a thought. I installed the lights on the back of my dads lux (whackeywombat). i installed them off the bottom of the sports bar and ran the wires through the centre of the bar down to were arb installed the power points in his tray.

[bundyoutlaw]

whops.... :oops: miss read your post...... sorry

[bundyoutlaw]

heres a photo anyway

[Doug67]

What's the story behind the sticker in your dads Lux?

[whackywombat]

My son & his mate did some samples of stickers & put them on my ute (front & rear). Sent the photo's to Dave. Dave liked them. The samples have been sent to Dave. Just waiting for approval. Should be available soon.

[Duges]

G'day Bundy, do the lights have switches on them?

[broke]

They would be gold for when people drive behind you at night on high beam or are tailgating you!!

Just flick em on and smash their retinas with a lazy couple mil of candlepower!!

Nice

[whackywombat]

Hi Duges
The lights on the rear of my ute work from a power box in the tub & use a 12v cig plug. When we get a chance a switch will be run into the cab. If you look at the rear facing work light on bundy's ute that's hard wired with a switch in the cab

[Dave]

I am about to wire up a hella spread worklight on the back, have done this with previous vehicles..... how I do this is as follows:

Run decent positive lead from battery in engine bay, run an inline fuse where it connects onto the terminal, run your cable through the firewall gromet then onto a switch on your dash, continue with cable going back through firewall out and under the vehicle in flexi conduit to the back, run a negative from the chassis to your light and the positive up to a 2nd switch in your tray (optional) and then back up to the light itself... be sure to put another inline fuse near the rear of the vehicle...

This is how I'll be doing my light, generally I use negative earth wires for switching back to relays but that's too much mucking around...

Could always use a positive directly back to the light then use a negative wire with your switches on instead.. that's another way of doing it!

[broke]

Dave,

not real flash on this electrical game but I have to ask,
'Why have a 2nd inline fuse?'

Cheers, Daniel

[Dave]

Daniel, I normally add a fuse at the front of the vehicle and one at the back.. because if you have a short at the rear, your wire may melt all the way back to the front and get the fuse at the last minute, saves a fair bit of melted wiring.

[Duges]

Thanks guys, what do you do if you need several power take offs for gadgets? How many wires can you connect to the positive terminal, gonna get a bit crowded there isn't it?

[bundyoutlaw]

If you run a fairly heavy wire off your battery to the tub, the end of that wire will have the same properties as the battery. as long as you dont exceed the current rating of the wire and battery, you shouldnt have a problem. Wat do you intend to run off these plugs if you dont mind me asking?

Gday Dave, you would hope the fuse would blow before the wire melts? Unless its rated heavier then the wire?
Altho you can never be to safe

[TOMUCH]

Guys, I have used an aftermarket 6 port fuse box to run all my accessories. This is simply a fuse box with one side of the fuse connections all connected to gether then there is only one cable (4 gauge min) to the Pos on the battery...then you can run up to 6 gadgets of that fuse box..or more if you get a bigger one...Now I have a rear battery as well so I would run a light from there...but daves wiring system would certainly do the trick... If you did have a battery in the tray..you could run a very light gauge wire to a switch on the dash to operate a relay using heavy gauge wire to the light...with fuses of course... safety first...Cheers TOMUCH

[bundyoutlaw]

Thats a neat looking set up tomuch. I like!

[Duges]

Yeah that's a great solution TOMUCH. Thanks Bundy, Dave, whacky etc. questions answered. Can't wait to get stuck into it.

[bundyoutlaw]

goodluck mate