I purchased 2 100 Watt each off road driving lights from walmart for 17 bucks each. They came with only the hardware to mount them and 2 wires hangin out the bolt. I purchased 10 guage automotive wire, in-line 20 amp fuse, and quick connects and other accessories.
I hooked a wire to the positive battery terminal, ran it to a switch i mounted above my radio, ran a ground wire to a point where I have 2 other thigns grounded at behind the e-brake, ran the 3rd wire from the switch to the lights where I wire nuted the hot wire from the switch and the 2 hot wires for each light together.
How does this sound? I am not an electricitan at all, I basically guessed on every single thing here.
Is 10 guage wire strong enough for these 12v 100 watt (200 watt) total lights?
Is a 20 amp in-line fuse the proper fuse?
The instructions said nothing at all no requirments for anything.
The only place I have a fuse is under the hood between the positive battery lead and the hot wire for my switch.

Here is a link to some pictures of my truck and the lights, let me know what ya'll think.

These lights are extremley bright! I have about 50-60 invested in the lights and the instalationa ccesories. Took me 5 hours from the time i got home to the time i drove off to test them.

http://www.filmloop.com/cgi-bin/bv/b...xtAds=1&px=FL3

Please check out the link and let me know what you think. This truck is my 97 4x4 4.6 with 203k miles on it.
Yes I do plan on plugging that hole by the switch.

 

Looks good, I mounted mine in the same position. Mine are the hella 500 (they seemed to weigh a little less) though. They just look like they are supposed to be there IMO. What you have done will definitely work, but if you are just looking for a critique I'd have to ask a question first.

How do you plan to use them most often (On road driving when used with high beams or ???)? Depending on your intended usage, I can suggest a couple of different wiring options that might work out better for you.

Did you make some brackets to reinforce the mounting position? I used some aluminum stock from Home Depot to form into a bracket that goes from the radiator support to the lights. Too much vibration without them. I know the '97 (mine's a '99) can be a little different in that area, are they just mounted to the fiberglass panel?

 

I will be using them on and off road. Any time there are no other cars around. I do alot of driving in the country where there are no lights at all.

The lights are about .5" to tall to fit behind the grill. So the bottom part of the fiberglass I drilled alot of .5" holes in to weaken it and cramed the light in there and mounted it to the very rigid fiberglass support up top. I have thought about doing exactly what you did with the aluminum bracket. I just got back from a test drive and there was 0 rattle/vibration. The beams remained perfectly still while driving on a rough dirt road.

How'd you wire yours?

 

I've wired my through a relay which is activated by the high beam circuit. I still have a switch so that that they can be turned off completely. The main benefits to doing this are:

Shorter wire for all that power to go through. You can come off the battery with one power wire, feed it into the relay (which splits it into 2 coming out) and come straight off the relay to the lights. No need to run all that power through the cab/switch.

The best thing is that now, especially nice when driving on the road, is that I can turn off the high beams and the driving lights go out automatically too. No need to mess with 2 switches in separate locations. This can be pretty important to keep from blinding oncoming cars that come out of nowhere (it's more difficult to notice there beams peaking over the top of a hill or the like with all your extra light, they sneak up more easily). With the switch you'll still have the ability to run with just the high beams, and get two stages of light. Might not seem too important, but fumbling around with a slightly oddly placed switch is no fun when you know you are blinding someone headed right for you.

I've made a new custom/upgraded harness for my headlights which piggybacks (no need to hack the original harness) onto the original harness. I tapped the high beam power on it to activate the relay. You can also get some mini fuse taps to draw power off the factory high bean fuse in the dash (you might have problems getting the first cover to seat properly, but it will go on). The relay draws very little power, so wire size isn't crucial here. 18 ga. and a 5 amp fuse would be more than adequate with either option.

This way of wiring does hinder running them with just low beams, but I've never found a situation that it was necessary.

On the fuse size in your original post: A 20 amp technically should work, depending on how accurately it was made (also depending on how accurate the bulbs in your lights are wattage wise). It is pretty close to the limit either way though. If it blows, try a 25 or 30. You'll still be perfectly safe.

You can get a 30 amp relay at most any parts store for a couple $'s.

Let me know if you want more info on the upgraded headlight harness or any other ?'s. The harness will make the headlights brighter in addition to other nice things.

 

It sounds like you have yours set up really nice. I did read about using a relay and taping into the highbeam switch. But I think I want to keep these completley seperate from my headlights. If the 20 amp blows I will step it up like you suggest. But what about the wire? Is 10 guage enough or is it over kill?

 

10 ga. should be adequate with solid connections all along the way. If it were mine I would like to see the power wire it a little shorter (by way of a relay), but it isn't crucial as long as the switch is up to snuff. You could activate the relay with the switch which could draw power from a constant hot or an ignition hot (to prevent leaving them on accidentally) fuse. Or you can leave it as it is .

For anybody interested in this, the Hella 500's fit perfectly inside. A hair bigger and they would be hitting the brace below them.They are the same diameter as the lights in this post, but the bracket is shorter so they sit in the grill a little higher.

 

1 watt=1 amp X 1 volt (12-14 volts in this case)

10 gauge wire is plenty.

its hard to say what your current flow is, but the 20 amp fuse should be plenty, since you have 2 lights they will have decent resistance, which limits total current flow.