Added relays

Buck91

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So I built a relay harness for the 2011 F150 today. Used primarily 12awg GXL Wire, some cheaper relays with plugs off amazon and some sockets with 14awg pigtails. Initially planned to wire up independent low beams with a common high be but found bad info on the internet and now the lows are common with independent high beams. Very tempted to order the 12awg h13 sockets off candlepower store, do you think it's worth it? Right now each high beam is fully redundant but the lows are drivin off a single control circuit with a single relay and a single 12awg power lead...

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Alaric Darconville

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Very tempted to order the 12awg h13 sockets off candlepower store, do you think it's worth it?
Running the full current through the factory sockets willt result in some extra heat, and factory H13 sockets in general are prone to being heat-damaged because the terminals on the bulb and socket are uncomfortably small for the current they need to carry. Higher-quality sockets are a good start (but still have the problem of the thin-terminal bottleneck), so keep an eye on the bulb bases themselves-- even high-quality bulbs use a plastic that eventually will outgas and deform. (Maybe (MAYBE!) the filament won't last long enough for base deforming to be a problem.)


At the time I wrote this, I was operating under the misapprehension that the CandlePowerInc sockets were decent but it turns out they're not. I may have known this at one time and forgotten. Still, the rest of what I wrote applies: Use high-quality sockets, but be advised that you should inspect the bulb bases periodically for deforming/cracking.
 
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-Virgil-

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Used cheaper relays with plugs off amazon

Why go to the bother of doing this work, only to put cheapy components at the heart of it? To call that unwise would be an understatement, given that when your headlights go out without warning some dark night you could easily die and/or kill. Good relays aren't expensive.

Initially planned to wire up independent low beams with a common high be but found bad info on the internet and now the lows are common with independent high beams.

Not clear what you mean by "independent" and "common" here. Do you mean you're trying to have the low beams stay on when you go to high beam?

Very tempted to order the 12awg h13 sockets off candlepower store, do you think it's worth it?

No, because of unreliable/poor quality. The good sockets and plugs come from here.
 

Buck91

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Well, to be fair I know the relays aren't the top of the line but they have very solid reviews ( on amazon ) and once established I can easily swap in some nicer units as they are standard 87 type. Biggest gripe is the smallish gauge pigtails but that can be mitigated by trimming them very short. Plus I finally found some 12awg terminals which should fit in there to replace the B+ and positive leads with. I'm not sure I understand your comment about the candlepower store sockets. They are DIY assembly with 12awg terminals, as long as the assembler does a good job they should be fine.

As for the independent vs common, I simply meant that I ran a separate relay for each side with a control circuit for each side from the factory plugs. The highbeams WERE designed to share a single relay and a single control circuit fed by the passenger side plug. Still pretty frustrated by this as I have found MULTIPLE sources showing the H13 is wired as I built these... but the factory wiring diagrams disagree and I should have double checked that first :oops:


In any case, they seem to be working well at the moment and I have time to tweak it as needed.
 
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-Virgil-

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Well, to be fair I know the relays aren't the top of the line but they have very solid reviews

Online "reviews" are notoriously undependable. There have been large-scale, scrupulous studies of this and they all seem to reach that same conclusion.


Biggest gripe is the smallish gauge pigtails but that can be mitigated by trimming them very short.

But again, why not just use quality parts in the first place?

I'm not sure I understand your comment about the candlepower store sockets.

I'm not sure I can be any clearer: they are of poor quality. They don't fit the H13 bulb very well or snap on very securely.
 

Buck91

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Well, Virgil, you appear to have been right. The candlepower, inc sockets I received appear to be overall decent. Maybe not THE BEST but better than most, including OEM. Although they lack a plug gasket. The problem is the terminals. They are tiny! THey are advertised as fitting 12awg but they do not. I could barely get 16awg to crimp in, and even then felt compelled to add solder to the joint. Contacted CP.Inc about it and despite ready conversation they ultimately left me very dissapointed. The end result is that they stick by it working with 12awg. Se below the the picture he ( Kenny Franklin, at Candlepower, Inc) sent me as proof. Its not even crimped let alone crimped well!

https://preview.ibb.co/mfUjze/IMG_20180906_122517308_HDR.jpg]Oversize image of crimp job
 
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747LeftSeat

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Not sure it matters anymore in modern cars but in day gone by you really wanted relays with back-EMF suppression like a built in resister or capacitor. When the relay coil is de-energized there can be a lot a voltage fed back into the electrical system when using relays without this suppression.
 

Buck91

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Thanks Alaric Darconville. I couldn't get that figured out for the life of me!

Oh, geez, is that what they count as "working"? :-(


Apparently. Multiple emails were sent back an fourth. To their credit, he actually says he went to the hardware store to get some 12awg and test it out... Not that it did much good.
 
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