Driving lights

[Alphonse]

I've just installed the factory driving light kit in my wifes Elise and want to know if anyone has figured out how to wire them so that they can be turned on with the parking lights engaged as opposed to the factory set-up of "on" with high beams only.
I do not have any wiring or circuit diagrams and can only guess at the present configuration.
My Esprit driving lights can be turned on with the parking lights which is a convenient arrangement for twighlight and hazy days where full beams are not desirable or required.

[scottyb]

Did you have to remove the front clam to install the lights?

[Alphonse]

No. Front grille pops out. Locate two holes one on each side of grille opening and pop out turn signal pods. See page 146? of owners manual regarding bulb replacement.
Wiring harness for driving lights are taped to the wiring loom which runs under the nose badge. Look for them, they're there. After you struggle for an hour or two and scrape most of the hair off your arm retrieving the plug/connectors, find the opening between the grille opening and where the wiring runs. You will feed the newly found, paid for in blood, wiring through these openings for connection to the driving lights.
Mounting brackets should already be installed in the upper corners of the grille openings.
If you've purchased the Lotus driving light kit you will end up with some extra bits. These extras are because many of them are already on the car. They provide these incase your car is not already so equiped.
The next tricky bit is finding the relay base.
Locating the base and installing the relay requires the following:
1. A mirror
2. light source
3. a past history in gymnastics or any other stretching exercise. Being a mambo king will also help.
4. A strong will otherwise clear all children or anyone who may take offense at the barage of profanity that will undoubtedly issue forth once the installation is underway.
5. A large bottle od Advil or stronger pain killer if you have it.

The relay is mounted above and behind the HVAC control pod. The relay will plug into the relay base from the drivers side.
I had to lay upside down with my head in the footwell, left hand holding the mirror on a stick, my right the relay, and my middle holding the light, (go figure).

All kidding aside, the entire process should have only taken a couple of hours if I had known where the wiring looms were hidden. The directions are good,
the wiring connections in the dashboard pod are clearly marked and everything fit as it was supposed to.

Good luck.

Al in pain B.

[TimMullen]

Originally Posted by Alphonse

If you've purchased the Lotus driving light kit you will end up with some extra bits. These extras are because many of them are already on the car. They provide these incase your car is not already so equiped.

Do they provide the instructions for these early cars (like mine ) that are not already pre-wired? If so, do you need to pull the clam for the non-pre-wired cars?

[Alphonse]

Tim,

Check with your dealer on that one. From what I saw, you might have to just to get the mounting brackets in place.

Al

[APOGEE]

Originally Posted by TimMullen

Do they provide the instructions for these early cars (like mine ) that are not already pre-wired? If so, do you need to pull the clam for the non-pre-wired cars?

Hi Tim, No you not have to pull the clam, your driving light plugs are taped to
the loom right under the nose badge. The mounting brackets will fit ok.
All the best, Don

[Alphonse]

Apogee,
I think you missed the part where Tim stated "for cars not pre-wired".
As for the mounting brackets, There are two bolts that attach the brackets to the car. One bolt is plainly visible through the grille. The other is tucked up and behind the shell in-between the turn signal pod and the grille opening.
If the car does not have these already in-place it could be a bit tough to install them with the shell in-situ.
The directions supplied were very good. I believe they expect you to have some knowledge of how things are laid out and some basic mechanical skills.
But with a little patience and a great web-site like this one where you can always ask a question if you hit a snag, the installation process is not so bad.

Now, back to the original question...anyone figure out how to bypass the high beam relay connection?
I've started digging into the wiring schematic and have determined that the driving lights can be isolated to work independant of the high beam switch if I can find a tap point for the control loop power.
The source is off of the instrrument power module but I do not know where exactly to tap into it.
Stay tuned for "the next step". As soon as I get that portion of the schematic I will lay out the proper jumper connections.

[scottyb]

On the inside of the cabin where there is the secondary fuse box for the driving lights, there is a brown wire that is allways charged when the key is in. It's a self reseting circuit breaker on it and should be perfect for drawing power independently for the driving lights.

[Alphonse]

Scotty,

Not disputing that possibility but be careful. If you look at the schematic you'll see that the relay coils appear to be running at a different amperage than the switches feeding the lights. I don't know what the relay coils are rated at but according to the way the schematic is drawn, they are isolated from the actual light feeders.
Hooking up the relay coil directly to a power feeder may burn it out.
At this point I am basing my assumption of the differing amperages on the circuit grouping and the difference in wire ga.
Relays are wired with a 0.5 wire, power circuits, 2.0 wire.

Al

[scottyb]

Originally Posted by Alphonse

Scotty,

Not disputing that possibility but be careful. If you look at the schematic you'll see that the relay coils appear to be running at a different amperage than the switches feeding the lights. I don't know what the relay coils are rated at but according to the way the schematic is drawn, they are isolated from the actual light feeders.
Hooking up the relay coil directly to a power feeder may burn it out.
At this point I am basing my assumption of the differing amperages on the circuit grouping and the difference in wire ga.
Relays are wired with a 0.5 wire, power circuits, 2.0 wire.

Al

You may be correct. Unfortunately, I have no schematics for the driving lights. It must have been added to the manuals after I purchased my copies. All I know is that I have a 15 amp fuse for it and that it's connected to a self re-setting circuit breaker. I tried to hook an amp up to it, but the circuit kept tripping. I would love it if someone could post the driving light schematics so we can all see them.

[ChrisB]

Originally Posted by Alphonse

Scotty,

Not disputing that possibility but be careful. If you look at the schematic you'll see that the relay coils appear to be running at a different amperage than the switches feeding the lights. I don't know what the relay coils are rated at but according to the way the schematic is drawn, they are isolated from the actual light feeders.
Hooking up the relay coil directly to a power feeder may burn it out.
At this point I am basing my assumption of the differing amperages on the circuit grouping and the difference in wire ga.
Relays are wired with a 0.5 wire, power circuits, 2.0 wire.

Al

Hooking up a relay coil to a circuit with a high amperage rating will not harm the relay (burn it out). The only problem with hooking something up to a circuit with a high-amoperage fuse/breaker is that, if it it develops an internal short, it may not trip the circuit breaker and any low amperage wires used to connect the relay to the high-amperage circuit may overheat and/or burn. However, if you use the heavier wire in all connections to the relay coil, that is not a problem either.

[Alphonse]

Originally Posted by ChrisB

Hooking up a relay coil to a circuit with a high amperage rating will not harm the relay (burn it out). The only problem with hooking something up to a circuit with a high-amoperage fuse/breaker is that, if it it develops an internal short, it may not trip the circuit breaker and any low amperage wires used to connect the relay to the high-amperage circuit may overheat and/or burn. However, if you use the heavier wire in all connections to the relay coil, that is not a problem either.

Chris,

Coils are rated by voltage and amp ratings. You cannot safely place a 20amp rated coil on a 30 amp service and expect it to last. The operating voltage on the Elise's coils is 12V but the amp rating may vary. I do not know what the overcurrent protection rating is for the elise coil circuits so I cannot say if the 15A line is appropriate. Lotus has segregated the coil circuits from the switch circuits for a reason. That segregation is what leads me to believe that the coils are operating at a much lower amperage than the lights.
Wire sizing is also goverened by amperage. A 0.5 wire will not carry the same amperage as a size 2.
Not meaning to lecture but allowable amperage is goverened by the NEC (National Electrical Code), and IEEE standards.
So if you do not want to go melting wires and coils they had better be matched.

AL

[ChrisB]

Originally Posted by Alphonse

Chris,

Coils are rated by voltage and amp ratings. You cannot safely place a 20amp rated coil on a 30 amp service and expect it to last. The operating voltage on the Elise's coils is 12V but the amp rating may vary. I do not know what the overcurrent protection rating is for the elise coil circuits so I cannot say if the 15A line is appropriate. Lotus has segregated the coil circuits from the switch circuits for a reason. That segregation is what leads me to believe that the coils are operating at a much lower amperage than the lights.
Wire sizing is also goverened by amperage. A 0.5 wire will not carry the same amperage as a size 2.
Not meaning to lecture but allowable amperage is goverened by the NEC (National Electrical Code), and IEEE standards.
So if you do not want to go melting wires and coils they had better be matched.

AL

Relays are rated for amperage in two ways. The amperage that the relay contacts are rated for...the max load that they should be switching...and the coil would be rated for the amperage it will draw. You can't force amperage through a coil (or any other load), except by raising the voltage applied to it...and that is not a variable here. You can run 100 ma of current through a 12 gauge wire with no problem. They don't have to be "matched", just that the load cannot exceed what the wire is rated to carry

The coils can't be isolated from the switches because it is the switches that control whether voltage is applied to the coil or not. What will be isolated from the switches are the load circuits that the relay is switching. For example, your headlight switch will control the coil in the headlight relay. That will be a relatively low amperage circuit. The contact side of the relay will switch the voltage to the actual lights and that will be a relatively high amperage circuit.

You could attach the coil side of the relay (and the switch you are going to use to control the relay) onto a circuit intended to deliver heavy amperage to something (assuming this additional load does not exceed the fuse/breaker rating). When doing this, either the wiring you use should be heavy guage or you could put an inline fuse of an appropriate size in the added circuit.

[Hollywood]

price and where did you get them?

[Alphonse]

Chris,
All I can say at this point is go for it. Let us know how it works out for you.

Hollywood,
We purchased the light kit through our Lotus dealer. $299.

[APOGEE]

Originally Posted by Alphonse

Apogee,
I think you missed the part where Tim stated "for cars not pre-wired".
As for the mounting brackets, There are two bolts that attach the brackets to the car. One bolt is plainly visible through the grille. The other is tucked up and behind the shell in-between the turn signal pod and the grille opening.
If the car does not have these already in-place it could be a bit tough to install them with the shell in-situ.
The directions supplied were very good. I believe they expect you to have some knowledge of how things are laid out and some basic mechanical skills.
But with a little patience and a great web-site like this one where you can always ask a question if you hit a snag, the installation process is not so bad.

Now, back to the original question...anyone figure out how to bypass the high beam relay connection?
I've started digging into the wiring schematic and have determined that the driving lights can be isolated to work independant of the high beam switch if I can find a tap point for the control loop power.
The source is off of the instrrument power module but I do not know where exactly to tap into it.
Stay tuned for "the next step". As soon as I get that portion of the schematic I will lay out the proper jumper connections.

Hi Alphonse, I didn't miss Tim's statement ''for cars not prewired'' trust me they are there. I have installed several kits on very early cars ( L.C.U.S.A -
press cars) and very recent Vin # . Regarding the brackets, I have never had
to R+R a clam to fit them but anyone is wellcome to.
All the best, Don

[Hollywood]

do you have the part number (s)?

[Brian 111]

Does anyone have the bulb type at hand? I'd like to see if there's an Osram bulb that fits, or an HID application before installing this. Just a detail having all the lights running at the same temp.

[APOGEE]

Originally Posted by Hollywood

do you have the part number (s)?

Hi Hollywood, Call 800 568- 8941, ask for Eric our parts Guy.
All the best, Don

[tugdiver]

Alphonse, thanks for the advice on the install. We were able to do the install in a couple hours and we found that in our car the wire was where you discribed it, we used a coat hanger because it was spiraled around another wire.

It went together nicely and it is a great thing to have for saftey. I am thinking about tying to place a fresnel lens on the outer 1/3 of the driving lights before I try the covers. I would like to expand the amount of side lighting. I am open to suggestions.