LED Bar wiring

[Milanu]

I do a lot of driving on country lanes and would like to fit an led light bar on the front of my Nissan Xtrail to operate only when I use full beam. Can I just slpice it into the pos/neg at the back of one of the main beam light housings? Should It have its own in-line fuse? Is it legal to to supplement main beam like this or does it need its own switch as well? Keen to do it myself if it is not too complicated. Any answers/advice etc. welcome.

[SS2.]

Me, I'd fit a dedicated on/off switch in the cabin and use a relay.

This can be wired such that the relay would only be energised when both switch and main beam are ON.

There should be loads of online guides how to do this but, if in doubt, get an auto-spark to install.

[ShampooEfficient]

You can get wiring kits to make it simpler, about fifteen quid on eBay.

[Milanu]

Thanks I'll look into that.

[Tomo1971]

It is legal to supplement the main beam in that way (if your old enough, there was a trend in the 80's for XR3's / XR2's to have driving lights) but the unit you chose would technically need to be marked correctly to be road legal.

Its unlikely that in the era we live in of ever been stopped and checked but road legal lights are likely to have better beam patterns and focus.

https://www.lazerlamps.com/be-street-legal

[LarsG]

The days of having a rack of Cibies stuck on the front bumper to light the way. What fun.

[gmaz]

LarsG said:

The days of having a rack of Cibies stuck on the front bumper to light the way. What fun.

It was the first mod I made to my mate's Mk2 Escort 1.1L within hours of him buying it, he wrote it off 2 days later.

[Milanu]

Job done. All working well. Thanks all for advice.

[K50 DEL]

Milanu said:

Job done. All working well. Thanks all for advice.

Just as a quick footnote to this... did you just splice into the wiring in the back of the headlight in the end?

I ask because that was what I intended to do in order to fit the lightbar to my X1 - talking to my friendly local mechanic about it, he said that it really should be installed through a relay as the wiring might well not be up to the extra current and there was something of a fire risk.

Mine's now installed through a relay!

[Milanu]

I did splice into the main beam wiring but I also fitted an inline fuse to the light bar just in case.

[Jakg]

Milanu said:

I did splice into the main beam wiring but I also fitted an inline fuse to the light bar just in case.

Fitting a fuse between the wiring existing loom and the lightbar wont protect the wiring, although the existing wiring should already be suitably fuse.

[Gary C]

LarsG said:

The days of having a rack of Cibies stuck on the front bumper to light the way. What fun.

OH yes !

a Killowatt of super Oscars on the front of my chevette.

That seriously needed a relay, but a LED bar would probably run fine just slaved off the live to the main beam.