Adding driving lights to E-450 (UPDATE)

I installed driving lights on my rig.
I bought a set of lights in a kit that I liked their looks.
I wired in a relay under the hood powered from my battery control center that had a driving light fuse. I used a small 30 amp relay available at local auto parts store. Any high amperage chassis battery location will work.
I wired a control circuit that is powered through the "run" position on igntion switch through an on/off lighted switch. I wanted the switch to be able to turn lights off when I wanted to. I don't like blinding people while parking in the dark at campgrounds.
Use adequately sized wire I used #14. Less voltage drop.
Fuse the power circuit
Fuse the control circuit
I chose ones similar to these.
LED driving lights

The "new" LED driving lights don't seem that bright. Is it me or...

I did as above, got the lights off Amazon for $30 or so. Make sure your alternator will support the lights. I have the heavy duty alternator on my truck, 185 amps IIRC.

Hi,

I got small led light bars rated for on road use. They draw very little energy. They are wired to turn off when I activate the high beams. I find myself never moving to the high beam settings. They were a replacement item, as one of the halogen driving lights had died--so the relay was already in place.

CREE chips are the "Hot Setup". Check the specs. If the lamps do not have an operational voltage range of 10-30 volts you can bet they are junk grade. Having purchased 100+ of these kinds of lamps I wised-up fast. Non-CREE chips are worthless -- keep this in mind.

There is a significant difference between SPOT and FLOOD lamps. The difference is in the housing well the chip sits in. Flood lamps have annular rings running around the well.

IP67 means waterproof.

The big issue with auxiliary lighting is to avoid the rough-road yadda-yadda-yadda effect that will leave your eyeballs bouncing like BB's in a rain barrel. Building a bracket that will seize the top of the housing will just about eliminate hot spots from doing the jig on the pavement. I cannot emphasize how important this is for off-the-interstate lighting.

I now confine purchases to eBay and the vendor that markets CA-KY (California - Kentucky)

klutchdust wrote:
My coach is a 2008 E-450 Interested in adding driving lights , recommendations or experiences wanted.

I would recommend fixing the headlight wiring harness first, the OEM wiring harness uses no relays and rather light ga wire (typically 18ga) that winds all around the vehicle adding lots of resistance.

This resistance creates a huge voltage drop which ends up with about 10V-11V at the headlight bulbs with the engine running..

That is about 25% less voltage to the bulbs which results in more than 25% less light.

You can build your own headlight relay kit with Bosch 12V 30A relays and heavy ga wire.. I used 10 ga wire and mounted my relays near the battery. You will need two relays, a fuse or breaker, 12 ga or 10 ga wire, two headlight replacement pigtails and a weather proof box to house the relays and a bunch of wire loom to make every thing neat and pretty. About $20 worth of materials and very bright headlights..

If you don't feel like building your own relay kit, there are a few premade ones you can buy for around $40-$50..

Just do a search for headlight relay kits..

I added the driving lights not for night driving but for visibility during the day.

enblethen wrote:
I added the driving lights not for night driving but for visibility during the day.

Understandable, but simply turning on the headlights during daylight hrs can do the exact same thing without the need for adding extra lights.

Typically when someone is asking about adding driving lights it IS all about the lethargic and pathetic weak OEM headlights for night driving.

Hence the reason for adding a relay kit which IS a VAST IMPROVEMENT over the OEM wiring without the need to add extra driving lights.

My tired old eyes did not respond to new ceramic plugs, 14 gauge wire and a TYCO relay. So then I purchased Hella 80/100 watt bulbs

A slight improvement for seeing what's up front...

Then came a 300 watt CREE light bar

Fabulous improvement until the lights need to be dimmed.

Switched to LED headlights
World of improvement low-beam seeing shoulders and potholes
But ABSOLUTELY did not improve long distance high beam illumination.

The 300 watt light bar was removed

Now the big kick is to somehow mount a pair of 18 watt SPOT CREE lamps

And aim them down and onto the right shoulder.

PROOF: I have passed many hundreds or even thousands of oncoming cars. Not one has flicked their lights for me to dim in Mexico or city and freeway driving in the USA.

Re-read my comments above about LED bulb replacement and high beam distance lighting.

Regardless. Before the shoulder was black. Now it is well lit. And the lights were aligned by a state licensed facility in California. If lenses were that cloudy the white light would not illuminate the shoulder.

I noticed the same with my truck, I can drive around with high beams on and never get flashed by oncoming traffic. I have no idea why but I'm thinking about adjusting the lights down to some extent. They are awful even after I replaced the lamps with new sylvania ultras. And that is a real PITA on the Ford HD trucks.