Hello all!

I recently installed a new grill with 3 mini led lights and led headlight covers on my 2017 Ford Ranger XLT. The issue that I am having is that they randomly turn off on one side every once in a while. It mostly happens when I first start the truck and turn them on. I have connected 2 of the mini led's on one side to the parking lights together with the led light cover on that side. On the other side i have 1 of the led's connected to the parking light as well as the other headlight cover. The side with the 2 led's and headlight cover is the side that turns off more than the other.


If anyone has any idea why this might be happening please let me know.

Thank you

 

Welcome to North American Ranger forum

We didn't have any Rangers from 2013 to 2018, so you have a T6 Ranger, larger than our older Rangers(1983-2012) and different wiring

But it reads like your connection is marginal to parking light wire or the GROUND for those 2 bulbs is marginal

You should power any added lights via a relay, the relay can be activated by the Parking light wire

When you add lights to an existing fuse and circuit you can cause fuse to blow, best case, or melted wire, worst case

A relay only needs .5 amp, 1/2 amp, so can't overload any circuit

 

Thanks for the quick response Ron!

From what I understood because the led use little power that it wouldn't be an issue but maybe it is. If I wire a relay would I then need a separate switch for the lights or would they still just turn on with the parking light?

I don't have a ton of experience in wiring lights like this and I appreciate your assistance.

Thanks again!

 

A relay is a switch, a remote switch and there are a few ways to use them

A relay has two parts
The coil, this is just a coil of wire around a metal cylinder, it has two connections, each end of the coil of wire, when it has 12volt on one end and ground on the other, it becomes an electro-magnet, the metal cylinder becomes a magnet
When you get a 12volt relay that means the Coil works using 12volts

The other part of the relay is the Load side, this is where you would connect the added electrical "loads"
You would connect a Fused 12volt source, like from the battery, to one load terminal, and then in this case all the added lights to the other load terminal

When coil is powered up the magnetic force pulls down a contact arm that connects the 2 Load terminals together, lights come on

The load terminals are rated by the AMPS they can pass safely
So a 12v 30amp relay, is activated by 12volts and it can pass up to a 30amp load

There is no connection between coil and load in a relay, separate parts in the same case

Automotive Relays were first used in Germany in Volkswagons, I tell you this because of the numbering used on todays relays, lol
85 and 86 are the Coil connections
30 and 87 are the Load connections

These were the numbers in the Volkswagon wiring diagrams, and just became the standard for automotive relays

A relay has no polarity, as long as coil has 12v on one side and ground on the other it will work, so 85 and 86 don't have a + or -

Same for 30 and 87, either can have the full time 12volts or the "Lights", they are connected together when relay is activated so doesn't matter which is which

At some point in the past a 5th pin/contact was added, 87A, when relay is OFF, 30 and 87A are connected, when relay is ON 30 and 87 are connected, 87A is disconnected

You can buy 4 or 5 pin relays, either works the same way

Underside of a 5 pin relay here: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/87/2a...504c2c7463.jpg

87A wouldn't be there on 4 pin relay


In your application you would GROUND pin 86, and then hook pin 85 to Parking light power wire, so when parking lights were ON relay would be ON, and only a 1/2 amp load on parking light circuit

30 would be Battery power with in line fuse
87 would connect to new lights

You can buy these relays, with base plug in, at any auto parts store

Another advantage of using relays in vehicles is you can use a switch in the cab to activate them, and you only need ONE smaller gauge wire to do that
You wire coil to have 12v all the time, then run smaller wire into the cab to GROUND the coil via a switch on the dash, use cab metal as the ground

 

Thanks Ron for the detailed info.

I'll try the relay switch as I'm sure it will solve the problem.

Thanks again for the assistance!