Flickering light bar

[Samm25]

Hey boys,

I’ve got a question for y’all. I have a couple of led lights hooked up to my ‘05 V8 4Runner. The issue I’m having is with my two 12” light bars. They’re wired to one harness, but don’t equal anything close to the maximum wattage the harness can hold. But when I turn them on and am driving with them and come to a stop or put my truck in reverse, etc. they tend to flicker a little bit. They’re not wired directly to the battery, but at the same time I don’t have a backup battery either. So is it that my battery just can’t handle all my lights or am I just missing something?
All my other lights seem to work fine. I also tried another light bar in place of these thinking it was the actual light bars themselves, but same issue.
I’m puzzled.

 

[Brian3676]

Loose connection somewhere. Be sure to really check the ground connection as well.

 

[theoutbackdream]

Hey boys,

I’ve got a question for y’all. I have a couple of led lights hooked up to my ‘05 V8 4Runner. The issue I’m having is with my two 12” light bars. They’re wired to one harness, but don’t equal anything close to the maximum wattage the harness can hold. But when I turn them on and am driving with them and come to a stop or put my truck in reverse, etc. they tend to flicker a little bit. They’re not wired directly to the battery, but at the same time I don’t have a backup battery either. So is it that my battery just can’t handle all my lights or am I just missing something?
All my other lights seem to work fine. I also tried another light bar in place of these thinking it was the actual light bars themselves, but same issue.
I’m puzzled.

Are they flickering as in flickering or dimming down?

If they're flickering, then you probably have a loose connection somewhere.

If they're dimming down... You mentioned that they're not wired directly to the battery, where are they wired too? It might just be that you'll pulling to much amperage from whereever you're getting power from. Usually with external items like lights, you're supposed to run it off the battery with a relay..

 

[akcc]

Sounds like you don't have sufficient amps going to your led bar.

Take either a pre-made hid relay harness or diy homemake your own relay harness and it should solve the problem.

 

[Samm25]

Are they flickering as in flickering or dimming down?



If they're flickering, then you probably have a loose connection somewhere.



If they're dimming down... You mentioned that they're not wired directly to the battery, where are they wired too? It might just be that you'll pulling to much amperage from whereever you're getting power from. Usually with external items like lights, you're supposed to run it off the battery with a relay..

Technically, it’s dimming down because it never actually turns off and then comes back on. But, I’ve checked all the wires, made sure they were tight. They’re wired to the little fuse box inside of the cabin to the lower left of the steering wheel. I didn’t want constant draw from the battery and only wanted them to be able to be turned on when the ignition was in the “on” position, which is why I wired them there.
They have relays on them, but not wired directly to the battery. Think that’s the issue?

 

[Ed_C]

Technically, it’s dimming down because it never actually turns off and then comes back on. But, I’ve checked all the wires, made sure they were tight. They’re wired to the little fuse box inside of the cabin to the lower left of the steering wheel. I didn’t want constant draw from the battery and only wanted them to be able to be turned on when the ignition was in the “on” position, which is why I wired them there.
They have relays on them, but not wired directly to the battery. Think that’s the issue?

Yes,you want to wire the relay's power connection directly to the battery. Where are the relays getting power now?

 

[LOSTR4]

Wire directly to battery and use your trigger wire for on/off to your reverse lighting wires or other...had the same problem until i did a direct battery connection...

 

[Samm25]

Yes,you want to wire the relay's power connection directly to the battery. Where are the relays getting power now?

They’re wired to the fuse box to the left of the steering wheel, close by the gas cap and hood release.
The reason I had wired them there is because I didn’t want constant draw from the battery and only wanted them to come on when I had the ignition switch turned to the “on” position.

 

[Samm25]

Wire directly to battery and use your trigger wire for on/off to your reverse lighting wires or other...had the same problem until i did a direct battery connection...

Sweet. I’ll try that out. Thanks man!


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[theoutbackdream]

Technically, it’s dimming down because it never actually turns off and then comes back on. But, I’ve checked all the wires, made sure they were tight. They’re wired to the little fuse box inside of the cabin to the lower left of the steering wheel. I didn’t want constant draw from the battery and only wanted them to be able to be turned on when the ignition was in the “on” position, which is why I wired them there.
They have relays on them, but not wired directly to the battery. Think that’s the issue?

If it's dimming down like you mention, then yes. You're pulling way too much load on whatever you're pulling power from.

What you can do is get a switch that connects to your relay. You'll be pulling power directly from the battery, but the relay will allow you to pull the power from the battery when you need it, with the switch. Essentially, the Relay is an on/off switch for when to pull power from the battery, and the switch just tells when the relay needs to turn on and off.

 

[LOSTR4]

Use this for your wiring...switch (circled) can be any switch and use a mini-tap for your ACC switched power...

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[duffdog]

To make this easy, you could have the light bar switch ground. Connect the red wire from the light bar to the battery and have the ground go through a switch and then to the frame of the truck. Super easy and no relays required, but switch must be able to handle 30A.