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New lights - battery drain

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Old 05-06-2014 | 01:27 AM
  #1  
JefferZ71's Avatar
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Default New lights - battery drain

New to the forum.....need help.
I just wired in 4 KC 100w lights on the front of my roof rack and 2 55w lights to the rear of it. I wired 2 of the KC to a relay then to the switch. The other 2 are the same set up. The rear lights are also relayed. All relays and switches are wired to an accessory fuse block that I ran off the battery. All grounds are made under the dash.
All the lights work great but I cant leave them plugged in or they drain my battery in a matter of hours. This cant be right....right?! It shouldn't be drawing power if the lights aren't turned on. I'm not very electronically inclined so any help here would be appreciated.
I plan on upgrading my battery and a higher output alternator but don't want to do that if there is a problem that will just drain that one too.....ugh!
Old 05-06-2014 | 08:35 AM
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Fred/N0AZZ's Avatar
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From: Monett, MO.
Year: 1999
Model: Cherokee
Engine: 4.0
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You have something wired wrong for sure, your correct the lights turned off should have no draw. Are you sure that it was not draining the battery before the lights were installed?

If not disconnect fuse block all the lights are hooked to from battery and see if the problem is still there. One thing I do is "always" make "all grounds to bare metal" starting with the battery grounds along with larger wiring.

I started my wiring upgrade with 5-90 wiring kit from here on the forum a grade A+ kit and a must have size for a large draw system. I hope you did run 10ga wire for your rear lights, a must for that length of a run and the loss/heat buildup a smaller ga. will have. If you get Kelly's kit he sends an excellent set of directions with Hi-Rez photos, just follow them.

I have lights/winch/large air compressor/portable lighting that I can use. Not shown in these photos are the side tabs I installed for the lights pointing to the sides. All of my lights are never on at once not even close but a HO alternator was installed.
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Last edited by Fred/N0AZZ; 05-06-2014 at 08:41 AM.
Old 05-09-2014 | 02:17 AM
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JefferZ71's Avatar
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Nice looking rig! Thanks for the response.
No I did not have this problem before I hooked the lights up. Now I don't have any of the lights hooked to the fuse block, and everything is fine.
I started trouble shooting to see if it was a certain set of lights that was drawing by plugging in one set and letting it sit for a couple of days. The 2 sets of 100w lights drew a little but didn't drain the battery. The rear set, the 55w lights, don't do anything to the battery.
I used 10 gauge wire from the battery to the fuse block. Everything else is 14 gauge. All the grounds are on bare metal under the dash.
Where did you ground your lights and switches?
I will look into that wiring kit you mentioned.....
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