2m 37s duration: notice, SS5 lightbar up top doesn’t turn on consistently. It randomly turned on. It randomly works.
40s duration: notice my top light bar isn’t functionality at all, and there was wildlife on the road…
2m 16s duration: I grab my multi-meter, battery is reading strong. Clearly there is an issue. SS5 lightbar is showing that sometimes it works, sometimes it’s dim/flickering, sometimes it doesn’t turn on at all.
Because of the 40s video, I don’t think it’s an issue with my alternator or the starter battery. SS5s are wired to starter battery, everything else on aux battery. Battery voltages remain consistent.
Potential thoughts/areas I’ll look into:
SPOD could have failure / an issue, although that’s not actually powering the SS5 lights (there’s 30A max per switch on the SPOD, it’s only turning on the lights). I doubt this is the issue.
I believe I have a relay, if memory serves, so the SPOD sends power to the relay which turns on the lights. Relay connecting starter battery to the lights. It’s possible this could be going bad, although I do hear it clicking properly.
It’s possible a fuse is melted somewhere and/or wiring harness has a fault? Not too sure. Can visible see that.
I have a lot to learn about electrical. I’ve had a very long day and may be misremembering something. Either way, I’ll share updates with my learnings on this post. The easiest things to troubleshoot are the relay / visibly check the line.
Flickering like that is commonly poor voltage or poor connection. It could be the power side or the ground side. Poor connection (or worn relay contacts) will cause resistance and slow power flow. If this happens after they’ve been on a while, that’s a good symptom. Remember, power has to flow full circle.
Start with the fuse to the relay. Its not going to be blown or they wouldn’t work at all. The voltage should be the same as your battery. I have some great relay testers at work but that wont do you any good. You should have other relays just like the one for your lights. Swap in another relay.
Find the feed coming down on the ground side and see where it is attached to your body. Also check any plugs you have going to the lights.
The issue may be a melted plug, over heated relay contact, overheated power or ground feed, overheated fuse block.
Too bad I couldn’t have had your truck here three weeks ago. That would have made a great diagnostic for my class.
Thank you for the thoughtful answer! Didn’t consider an over heated relay contact. I’ll play around with it a little more and see if this happens after it’s been on for a bit, I think the answer is yes.
Considering it turned on by itself after several seconds of being off, as captured at 10 seconds here, a bad relay is interesting/heated relay. For context, this relay is 1.5 years old. Will circle back once I solve this!
Rewatching the video brought up a question and another point. On the SPod button there are three dots, two when you press and a blue on on the right that pops up occasionally. What is the third light?
looking again today I see two issues.
they don’t come on
they came on by themselves.
Causes
relay contact, SPOD, wiring issue.
SPOD. “If” the lights have their own processor AND a separate B* feed this could be caused at the light or relay. I don’t know enough about the circuit but at this point, odds are its the SPOD. You can throw in corrosion issues also but the criteria for that to happen puts it at a low possibility.
An issue I ran into with my compressor relay is, even though it has a 30 amp rating and the compressor draws about 18 amp, it burned up the contacts after a few years. Considering the compressor is only used for my tires and only for 15 minuet’s at a time, it didn’t hold up well. I went to the next size case for the relay. That would cause them not to work or flicker due to overheated contacts. What that shouldn’t do is cause them to pop on by themselves.
Hey Matt, I would check the relay(s). You can either buy a relay at a auto parts store or you can just swap out the bad relay on the wiring harness with a good relay that is currently in use. That’s a quick and easy way to diagnose if it is a relay issue. A bad relay can still make the “click” noise when you activate the switch. I know from my recent experience with my Baja Designs wiring harness.
Blue (right) = Active visual feedback when button is pushed
That blue is simply indicating that I’m pushing the button.
I have confirmed that it’s “not getting too hot” as a potential issue. I had the lights not work at all after 24 hours, versus them working for a bit then not working. I’m thinking it’s something else. I’ll upload a photo of relay soon.
@BOMBS510 , thanks. From what I’ve been advised, it’s a 200A high quality relay. I’ll share a photo here. It’s rare that’s the issue from what I’ve been advised.
This is the Deutsch DT-P connector. If I’m understanding this properly, each pin has a max of 25A. 4 pins. If 2 positive and 2 grounds, that’s total 50A… since there’s only 2 positive, and 1 ground, that’s a limit of 25A. These lights pull 6A per, at 7 total SS5s that’s 42A. Thus, this is the reason why this wiring harness is overheating… it only supports 25A. I’ll verify this with Diode Dynamics.
10 gauge is fine and I would be surprised if they didn’t use quality wire. You cant really tell by looking at the wire if its high quality or regular. The difference is copper content, insulation material and sometimes strand size.
Low quality is what’s called “CCA”. Copper coated aluminum. It takes three times the aluminum to flow the same power as copper. I see that stuff all over Amazon. We stay away from that.
Another thought is “if” your controlling the positive side, we can add a ground up on top. That will take the negative load off the connector.
I just looked at the link to the harness. The relay looks like a Bosch design. They gave it an 80 amp ratting???
I hope its not that size. Those have issues with constant 40amp. The contacts aren’t that big and over heat. I hope it was just me looking at that picture.
