Lights installed? check. Wires connected? check. Let there be light.
Let’s start with the comparison with low beams:
Hmm… a little too dark. Let’s add high beams:
Still not quite bright enough, I think. Let’s add the spot lights and fog lights:
Holy crap! Yes, it’s bright enough. And that is without the magnetic spot light installed.
Hard work paying off:
After having used these on a night-time road trip through the wintery mountains, I can safely say that they are awesome. You have to be very attentive to oncoming traffic of course, and switching to low beams looks way too dark in comparison, but I get giddy every time I turn them on.
These pictures were taken after aiming the spot lights. Before I aimed them they were pointed at all sorts of weird angles. My design was to have them aimed like this, with minimal overlap of beams:
The fog lights do a great job of lighting up the immediate vicinity (perhaps too bright for actual fog, however) while the three spot lights are offset in aim to light up a wide swath of the farther road. The middle light gives a slightly wider beam, but to a lesser range, and can be assisted by the magnetic spotlight.
Aiming the lights properly requires the right environment. An empty Canadian Tire parking lot worked nicely at 3am when I finally finished the wiring. To start with, an empty wall about 10ft away was used to get the lights roughly in line with where I wanted them. The nice thing about a close wall is that you can see a clear definition of the light pattern - nice little circles outlined against the bricks. It’s kind of hard to fine tune the long-distance pattern with something that close-up, however.
If you can find a longer distance to shine the lights (maybe an empty country road for you country dwellers), that will help the fine tuning. A straight, flat surface is ideal, as any curves or hills won’t give you an accurate depiction of where the light is going. At about 100ft, I fine tuned the aim of the centre spotlight to be centred and shining on the road, not the sky. The other two spotlights were aimed to be just outside of the centre spotlight beam. Then everything was tightened up, being careful not to move the aim while doing so.
Though the project is not entirely finished (some minor fixes forthcoming), here is the overall cost breakdown. A lot of these items were purchased in larger quantities than I required leaving leftovers for future projects.
Cost breakdown:
$45 - spot lights and light bar
$15 - fog lights (Princess Auto)
$5 - fuse block (Princess Auto)
$5 - fuses (Princess Auto)
$15 - Subaru fog light switches and new bulbs (junkyard, electronics store)
$42 - two 25ft spools of 8ga wire (lots left over), one 25ft spool 10ga wire (a little left) (Princess Auto)
$6 - two relays (dealextreme)
$8 - electrical solder, lots left over (Princess Auto)
$3 - heat shrink tube (dealextreme)
$6 - Anderson connectors (ebay)
$15 - Powerpole connectors, lots left over (ebay)
$15 - wiring terminals, lots left over (Princess Auto, electronics store)
$free - 4ga wire and fuse holder, magnetic spotlight
probably some other junk I forgot
==$180, approximately
Incidental supplies:
various metals from my bucket o’ metals
various wires from my bucket o’ wires
various hoses from my bucket o’ hoses
various fuses, relays, terminals from my bucket o’ electronics crap
(never throw anything away)
old hard drive case
zip ties
wire loom
probably some other junk I forgot
Let’s start with the comparison with low beams:
Hmm… a little too dark. Let’s add high beams:
Still not quite bright enough, I think. Let’s add the spot lights and fog lights:
Holy crap! Yes, it’s bright enough. And that is without the magnetic spot light installed.
Hard work paying off:
After having used these on a night-time road trip through the wintery mountains, I can safely say that they are awesome. You have to be very attentive to oncoming traffic of course, and switching to low beams looks way too dark in comparison, but I get giddy every time I turn them on.
These pictures were taken after aiming the spot lights. Before I aimed them they were pointed at all sorts of weird angles. My design was to have them aimed like this, with minimal overlap of beams:
The fog lights do a great job of lighting up the immediate vicinity (perhaps too bright for actual fog, however) while the three spot lights are offset in aim to light up a wide swath of the farther road. The middle light gives a slightly wider beam, but to a lesser range, and can be assisted by the magnetic spotlight.
Aiming the lights properly requires the right environment. An empty Canadian Tire parking lot worked nicely at 3am when I finally finished the wiring. To start with, an empty wall about 10ft away was used to get the lights roughly in line with where I wanted them. The nice thing about a close wall is that you can see a clear definition of the light pattern - nice little circles outlined against the bricks. It’s kind of hard to fine tune the long-distance pattern with something that close-up, however.
If you can find a longer distance to shine the lights (maybe an empty country road for you country dwellers), that will help the fine tuning. A straight, flat surface is ideal, as any curves or hills won’t give you an accurate depiction of where the light is going. At about 100ft, I fine tuned the aim of the centre spotlight to be centred and shining on the road, not the sky. The other two spotlights were aimed to be just outside of the centre spotlight beam. Then everything was tightened up, being careful not to move the aim while doing so.
Though the project is not entirely finished (some minor fixes forthcoming), here is the overall cost breakdown. A lot of these items were purchased in larger quantities than I required leaving leftovers for future projects.
Cost breakdown:
$45 - spot lights and light bar
$15 - fog lights (Princess Auto)
$5 - fuse block (Princess Auto)
$5 - fuses (Princess Auto)
$15 - Subaru fog light switches and new bulbs (junkyard, electronics store)
$42 - two 25ft spools of 8ga wire (lots left over), one 25ft spool 10ga wire (a little left) (Princess Auto)
$6 - two relays (dealextreme)
$8 - electrical solder, lots left over (Princess Auto)
$3 - heat shrink tube (dealextreme)
$6 - Anderson connectors (ebay)
$15 - Powerpole connectors, lots left over (ebay)
$15 - wiring terminals, lots left over (Princess Auto, electronics store)
$free - 4ga wire and fuse holder, magnetic spotlight
probably some other junk I forgot
==$180, approximately
Incidental supplies:
various metals from my bucket o’ metals
various wires from my bucket o’ wires
various hoses from my bucket o’ hoses
various fuses, relays, terminals from my bucket o’ electronics crap
(never throw anything away)
old hard drive case
zip ties
wire loom
probably some other junk I forgot
- mounting the fog lights
- building the removable light bar
- wiring part 1: new bulbs in OEM foglight switches
- wiring part 2: the plan (wiring diagrams)
- wiring part 3: switches (more diagrams)
- wiring part 4: parts and pieces
- wiring part 5: under the dashboard
- wiring part 6: fuse and relay box
- wiring part 7: prepping the lights
- wiring part 8: final connections
- wiring part 9: aiming the lights
- wiring part 10: updates and fixes
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