BearKiller

I spent the day, plumb into the darkness, on the wife's truck, doing the headlight relay trick.

I ain't completely finished; but, she has much brighter lights and nothing is dragging the ground, so she can drive it, until I get a chance to wrap it all up.

With engine idling, headlights on BRIGHT, before doing anything, my tester showed 12.25 volts at the right side headlight terminal.

After relays, all 12 gauge wire, direct 12 gauge grounds, engine idling, lights on BRIGHT, I have 14.5 volts at the right side headlight terminal.

I was too wore out to drive around; but, in the driveway, the lights seem to be about twice as bright, and they weren't slouchy to begin with.

One recommendation, before starting this, procure new larger gauge headlight pigtails.

I just soldered to the old ones; but, that factory wire is pathetically small, and it doesn't look really professional. As soon as I can get what I want, new pigtails will be installed.

I can't believe how TINY the headlight ground wires are, about four little copper hairs; I don't see how they lit at all.

Swapping them for 12 gauge is like replacing a windshield washer hose with a fire hose.

I am gonna play around with getting brights and dims burning together, with this option switchable via a toggle.

I routed the battery hot wires through 30 amp blade-fuses, as I didn't have any circuit-breakers on hand.

Will the fuses suffice, or should I install breakers??

Is there such a thing as a circuit-breaker that plugs in place of a blade-type fuse??

I also found it sort of curious that the wire that feeds the little bright-light-indicator, way back there up in the dash, not two foot from the dimmer-switch, is spliced into the left-side headlight bright-side terminal; it seems sort of foolish, to me.

One other question that popped up:
Can these little Bosch-type relays be turned sideways-crossways-laying-flat; or, do they have to hang straight down to properly function??

Sorry to be so long-winded.

Jim Lane

I really like bright lights.
Silver Star headlamps. I have had my truck converted over to Silver Stars ever since they first came on to the market and after finally convincing myself that it is ok to pay $40.00 for 2 headlamps.
Anyhow After installing the relays years ago I have noticed although my headlamps were really bright, they would not last much more than 3 to 6 months of normal use.
A check at the headlamp socket with the lamp connected would give me between 13.8 to 14.8 volts depending on what was turned on at the time, so I figure I was driving the Silver Star's at or above their voltage limits.
My Leece Neville alternator has a set voltage of 15.0 volts and is needed to maintain all 3 of my batteries, there is enough resistance in the length of the wiring inside the cab the electronics are safe.

To save my headlamps I built a voltage regulator using a stud mount 100-amp diode in a finned heatsink.
This then feeds the input to the 4 headlight relays which now gives me about 13.8 volts at the headlamp and they now last much longer.
My plan is to construct a PWM based voltage regulator for the headlight circuit.


I had sent an E-mail to Sylvania to try and get some specifications on the lamp:

Comment pertains to: Automotive Lighting
Comments: H6054 SilverStar Sealed Beam Headlight I have installed these
lamps into my 1991 Dodge D-350 Ram. I have a problem with them burning
out frequently. I have installed relays to control the filaments for
each lamp and charging is accomplished through a 150 amp Leece Neville
110-555HO OTR alternator. The terminal voltage at the lamp is 13.8 - 14.8
volts.
What is the optimum and maximum voltage these lamps can operate at?
At the higher voltages are the filaments more fragile causing them to
fracture easier? This truck is a Cummins diesel so there is more
vibration. This is the only reason I could come up with since the lamps
only last about 3 months per set.
If this could be the problem I have designed a voltage regulator using a
100-amp diode in the power feed to reduce the input by 1.2 volts, which
should drop it to 13.6 volts.
How much output will I loose? Are there specs. that show the intensity
(lumens) vs. voltage?
Thank you for helping me find an answer.
Jim

Good Morning Mr. Lane,
Thank you for your inquiry. Our products are designed to operate
properly between 12 and 12.8 volts, and can operate at up to 14 volts
for a short period of time, but if your vehicle is running at 14 volts
or higher for any amount of time, this can cause a part to fail
prematurely. If your voltage is running at 14 volts or higher, I would
recommend that you have the voltage regulated to bring it back into the
correct range of 12 to 12.8 volts.

Unfortunately, we do not have any specifications that relate lumen
output to voltage. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any
other questions.

Sincerely,
Heather
OSRAM Sylvania
Customer Service

From the reply it looks like the lamp will work well with upgraded relays and stock alternator but once you start pushing the electrical system to it’s limits then failures are immanent.
You may experience your Silver Star Headlamps burning out a bit more often when you install relays but even at the price I feel the much brighter lights are worth the sacrifice.

Quote:
Is there such a thing as a circuit-breaker that plugs in place of a blade-type fuse??
Yes. They are usually used for A/C, Power Seat, and Power Window circuits.

One other question that popped up:
Can these little Bosch-type relays be turned sideways-crossways-laying-flat; or, do they have to hang straight down to properly function??

Yes. They can be mounted in any position BUT need to be mounted terminals Down if they need to be water resistant, under the dash they can go whichever way you like.

Jim

Rampage1967

Use GE HO halogens . . . they put out loads of light, are cheaper & don't burn out all the time. You can get them at Wally World by the way.

BearKiller

The wife's truck (the one I just got done doing the relay job on) had/has a set of WAGNER-halogen sealed-beams.

From the first time she drove the truck in the dark, she has bragged on how wonderfully bright the headlights are.

The only thing around here with better lights is my old 78 Chevy 4x4, with the original NOT halogen, round headlights, and factory wiring; that old truck has always been able to melt the blacktop with the lights.

Are the SilverStars going to be better than the Wagner-halogens that she currently has??

As to the longevity of the bulbs, the Chevy, with over 400,000 miles, has the headlights that General Motors screwed in there at the factory; and, the 85 Ford has over 200,000 miles on it's current pair.

BearKiller

What are you guys thoughts on the fuse versus breaker situation??

Thanks.

Jim Lane

Before the Silver Star's I used to run the 6054 Cool Blue lamps, I still burned out quite a few but the lighting was getting better.
The Silver Star came along and was a big improvement, I bought a pair of the 6054 composite headlamps off E-Bay claiming to be just like the Hella's but I did not like the cut off pattern of the lamp. It might be good for the oncoming traffic but I feel I lost quite a bit available light on LOW beam, you could align then on a wall and see a definite horizontal cutoff, and anything above the centerline was dark. You can see how they did this by the way the lens was fluted, on High beam there was a lot of light.
I was not happy so I went back to a pair of 6054 Silver Stars and I guess I will have to be satisfied until Sylvania comes out with the Ultra’s in a 6054 housing or until I get a set of HID arc lamps.


http://www.ipfrontline.com/printtemplate.asp?id=2456

Quote:
What are you guys thoughts on the fuse versus breaker situation??

Thanks.

I prefer a self-resetting circuit breaker for the fact it will reset itself once the short or overload is removed where a fuse does not tolerate slight overloads well.
In all of my years of working on cars, heavy trucks and busses I don't think I have ever seen a fuse on a headlight circuit except for european, Volvo, VW and Asian. But I mean REAL vehicles.

I think I might have read something about it in the vehicle code about having the lights on a resetting circuit breaker, I will check into this.

I feel I would use a circuit breaker on all essential loads like headlights and brake controllers where non-essential loads could have a fuse. But this is just my reasoning.

Now they do make push to reset circuit breakers like the ones used in aircraft, this would make a nice project.
Jim

andyr354

I am going to put fuses in mine.

On the siverstars I wouldn't waste my money on them. Do an H4 conversion instead. Get some housings and then you just replace bulbs when they go out. There have been many comments on the short life of SS sealed beams on many of the jeep boards I hang out on.

I run H4 E code housings with 100/55 watt bulbs in mine. Light up those back roads at night.

Also get relays with two 87 terminals, not an 87 and 87a to make wiring them in easier.

Ace

I think fuses are fine in this application. They are a piece of safety equipment/insurance you never expect to use if the rest of the circuit is properly designed and installed. Their only purpose should be to cut the circuit in the event of an accident or similar type damage to prevent a fire. You have bigger issues if resetting breakers is something you have to worry about more than once a decade.

BearKiller

I guess once it goes dark, it is just as dark with a thrown breaker as it would be with a blown fuse.

That is why we have BIG flood/running lights wired on a completely different circuit, just for such emergencies.

BearKiller

Looking at this from another angle, good fuses are not cheap; and, if something goes haywire, and starts shooting fuses, it can soon use up several dollars worth, just finding the problem; whereas, a good circuit-breaker can trip numerous times and be none the worse for the experience.

A smart man, like ME, would keep a few breakers around for trouble-shooting purposes.




We had something similar, when I worked as a Fireman at Norfolk Southern, in a lot of the locomotives.

CONTACTERS is what the old guys called them, and an SD-40 DASH 2 was full of them.

Whenever something went wrong in the electrics, about a dozen of them would be popped out, requiring resetting.

Sometimes, they would pop off as quick as reset, and then smarter people than me had to be called in.

andyr354

Use two fuses, one on each low/high beam circuit. If you blow a fuse on HB just flip to low. Or vise versa.

Jschlachta

I looked up some information on the silverstar H6054 ST bulbs the site lists the design voltage at 12.8 volts, with 55 watts low 65 high and rated life at 100 low and 50 high. So if you used the bulbs 1 hour a day they would last for 100 days which is like three months. Funny how the advertising does not say anything about the rated life. The xtra vision lites are rated at 850 hours and advertised as twice the normal sealed beam.

BearKiller

I wired each side through a seperate fuse, one for brights, one for dims.

BearKiller

In the other version of the headlight relay modification(the RamCentral link in the "sticky"), it makes reference to:

3-A BRAND HEAVY-DUTY HeadLight Sockets #46-9993(9003/H4) with 14GA wire

:as opposed to the light-duty el-cheapo ones available at the auto-parts.

Where can these, or some as good or better, be purchased??

Thanks.

ppiggppenn

BK in case I missed a reply I have found breakers for blade fuse holders, ...in my case Canadian Tire, but no doubt NAPA/UAP would have as well. And for trouble-shooting they are real grief-savers as you pointed out.