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OK. 2020 F250 Tremor. I added LED strip accent lights to my grill. Pics attached. The center lights I have hooked to upfitter. The top and bottom strips I wired to the drivers side headlight connector. I believe I went to the Green/orange wire. I used this wire to trigger a relay so as to not over exert the circuit. So the top and bottom strips are on whenever the outer led DRL is on. They worked fine for a week. Now a couple of days ago, the drivers side DRL went out. Forscan gives me some all over the place codes. B1C11for the mirror motor (I have no issues). B11F0 Air intake damper position sensor, and B14E5 Left front Enhanced exterior lighting system.
Any thoughts? Thanks in advance.
Almost sounds like you need a diode to prevent voltage from backfeeding into the headlight circuit. They're readily available on Amazon (among other vendors), just make sure that you have it wired in the proper direction.
If you remove the relay from the DRL circuit does it work properly?
I just pulled the relay and cleared the codes. The DRL hasn't come back on yet, but I read somewhere that it may take a bit?? I started the truck a few times and cycled the door open and closed a few times. About to drive home and will recheck if the codes came back.
Almost sounds like you need a diode to prevent voltage from backfeeding into the headlight circuit. They're readily available on Amazon (among other vendors), just make sure that you have it wired in the proper direction.
Not sure what the diode actually does, but if it works, why not try it? So the feed line from the headlight plug would be the "in" line? correct? If I used the diode, could I then get rid of the relay?
Correct, you'd want to IN to be from the headlight wire, then the OUT would go to your relay. You'll still need the relay to power your LED aftermarket lights. The diode is designed to allow current to flow in one direction, but not the other (so, it prevents flow of electricity to feed back into the supplying circuit).
This is all predicated on the fact that you should be using the relay to power the aftermarket LEDs, and not the headlight! The headlight wire should go to the trigger wire of the relay (on the run-of-the-mill 12V 30A relay it should be the white wire, IIRC). If it's a standard relay you'll have 12V power (to be supplied by a source that's hot when the ignition is on (such as a spare fuse supplying enough voltage required by your LEDs), ground wire, and a trigger wire to activate the relay.
You can use a fuse from the underhood fuse box (or, if you have the upfitter option, power from the underhood relay box), but if you take the underhood fuse box approach make sure to confirm that your fuse box lid is completely shut so that no moisture can enter and cause many, many problems. I originally had my aftermarket grille lights relay powered by the snow plow fuse (which is an option I don't have, and it supplies current only when ignition is on). Use a small Add-A-Fuse which works perfect for the connection.
As of now, yes, the wire from the headlight plug goes to the trigger wire. The 12v out from the relay goes into a voltage regulator and then out to the leds. The main power for the relay comes direct from the battery.
the center lights, I have wired to the outfitter switches. I did that because it "strobes" when it gets powered on. So I can "wink" at people. Lol. I was hoping to have the main strips wired to the led "[ ]" so they'd always be on or off together. I don't want the main strips on when the [ ] on the sides turn off.
I was hoping to have the main strips wired to the led "[ ]" so they'd always be on or off together. I don't want the main strips on when the [ ] on the sides turn off.
Not really sure if the power wire to the two C-shaped LED's has enough current to trigger the relay, but if it does then it sounds like you'd need the trigger for the relay to come from either the left or right C, and not from the headlight - perhaps?
In any case, with the finicky voltage requirements of the Super Duty, it doesn't take much to trigger codes if some small millivolt drop is detected in certain circuitry. You should try the diode approach and properly isolate any possibility of current feeding back into the headlight circuit. Just my opinion...
However, you can confirm that your wiring could be the culprit of the codes you're experiencing, simply by disconnecting the trigger wire from the relay or headlight wire, then clear the codes and see if they return. If they don't then I suspect you're pushing current into the circuit causing the codes to trip. Or, you may have a grounding or shorting problem, or drawing too much from the headlight circuit triggering your relay, any of which could cause the same result.
So at this point, I have the relay pulled. I cleared the codes last night. drove to work this morning and the only code I had was the B11F0 for the air intake damper. Cleared that again and ran around for a bit and it hasn't returned. But the Led ] hasn't restored itself. will it with time, or did I jack up the headlight?
I have an update. Mostly because I hate when someone figures out a problem and never shares the fix.
I haven't yet added the diode, but I have it coming Monday.
I THOUGHT that I burned up the LED module in the headlight, so today I pulled the headlight to make sure I was going to order the correct module. After confirming that, I hooked the relay back up for the grill lights and put it all back together. Then I ran codes and got the B14E5 for the left front lighting. I cleared the codes and ran the BdyCM self test twice. Apparently this reset whatever was going on because everything works just like it was before. So hopefully if I add the diode, I wont have any more issues.
Thanks for the input guys!!
OK. 2020 F250 Tremor. I added LED strip accent lights to my grill. Pics attached. The center lights I have hooked to upfitter. The top and bottom strips I wired to the drivers side headlight connector. I believe I went to the Green/orange wire. I used this wire to trigger a relay so as to not over exert the circuit. So the top and bottom strips are on whenever the outer led DRL is on. They worked fine for a week. Now a couple of days ago, the drivers side DRL went out. Forscan gives me some all over the place codes. B1C11for the mirror motor (I have no issues). B11F0 Air intake damper position sensor, and B14E5 Left front Enhanced exterior lighting system.
Any thoughts? Thanks in advance.
Unless you purchased a relay designed to be ultra-low current for activation, it likely draws more power than the LED lights you want to connect.
What is the spec on the relay for pull-in current? How much current do the LED strips require?
Part of the problem may be the headlights and DRL are powered by pulse width modulation (PWM), not a solid DC voltage. PWM is a square wave signal and the duty cycle is changed to control the power/intensity of the lights.
A relay coil should be low enough current draw to not affect the PWM driver, but maybe that circuit has some components that are sensitive to the coil induction. Along the same lines, I doubt a diode will fix this but it's worth a try.
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