Spotlights - how to wire???

Stone56 said:

If thay are spot lights for MOT thay need to be switched independent

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Interesting, mine pass and so do my son's on both his Ninety and D2.

_Stingrey_ said:

Also for info I have spliced the yellow wire in the images shown above to the H'beam feed <snip>

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If you have done that, wired a Neg to a Live, it's no wonder they don't work ... you have taken the earth away from the LED's and they won't work if you do that.

Also if they are 100W lamps and ther are 2 of them, that's an additional 17Amps that the feed (the one i've asked you about but you haven't replied) has to provide, there is likely to be more than just a headlamp not lighting ... I presume that all that current isn't passing through the column light switch ?

miktdish said:

If you have done that, wired a Neg to a Live, it's no wonder they don't work ... you have taken the earth away from the LED's and they won't work if you do that.

Also if they are 100W lamps and ther are 2 of them, that's an additional 17Amps that the feed (the one i've asked you about but you haven't replied) has to provide, there is likely to be more than just a headlamp not lighting ... I presume that all that current isn't passing through the column light switch ?

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Maybe he has fitted some relays?

miktdish said:

If you have done that, wired a Neg to a Live, it's no wonder they don't work ... you have taken the earth away from the LED's and they won't work if you do that.

Also if they are 100W lamps and ther are 2 of them, that's an additional 17Amps that the feed (the one i've asked you about but you haven't replied) has to provide, there is likely to be more than just a headlamp not lighting ... I presume that all that current isn't passing through the column light switch ?

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There is a 30 amp fuse between battery and relay. The yellow wire connected to the headlight H'beam feed is a trigger wire that operates the relay once it senses power. It is labelled 'To Negative/H'Beam switch'. I'd imagine this is the wire causing all the problems but apart from to negative where else would it go. There is already a switch built into the harness that arms the spotlights but don't switch them on. They only come on when you use the flasher. If you switch them off using the switch they then don'e operate with the flasher. I'm guessing this is so that you can choose when you want to use them or not.
The only other place I can think the yellow wire can go is to the +wire at the flasher stalk as it needs to trigger the relay somehow???

Why don't you draw a picture of exactly what you have wired to where for better help?
It's taken 2 pages for you to tell use that you have fitted a fuse and relay.

_Stingrey_ said:

There is a 30 amp fuse between battery and relay. The yellow wire connected to the headlight H'beam feed is a trigger wire that operates the relay once it senses power. It is labelled 'To Negative/H'Beam switch'. I'd imagine this is the wire causing all the problems but apart from to negative where else would it go.

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It gets switched to negative. Modern cars do that, the circuit is live and you connect the negative to complete the circuit.
You, on the other hand, sound like you are switching live (+) although it's difficult to tell as your flow of information isn't...

_Stingrey_ said:

There is already a switch built into the harness that arms the spotlights but don't switch them on. They only come on when you use the flasher. If you switch them off using the switch they then don'e operate with the flasher. I'm guessing this is so that you can choose when you want to use them or not.

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You will possibly need to switch them off when you go for an MOT, some places you do. others you don't.

try

miktdish said:

It gets switched to negative. Modern cars do that, the circuit is live and you connect the negative to complete the circuit.
You, on the other hand, sound like you are switching live (+) although it's difficult to tell as your flow of information isn't...

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That sounded like the problem to me. I had that challenge putting spotlights on my td5. On more modern vehicles (like the td5) the factory switches are all on the negative side of the circuit. On an earlier defender as the OP has will be on the positive side. It sounds like @_Stingrey_ is trying to use a prebuilt wiring loom that came with the spotlights. This may not be suitable for a vehicle of this age.

Wiring in additional spotlights is very easy but tying to work from the description give and the part built kit loom is muddying the waters. @_Stingrey_ can you give the brand of loom you are using or any instructions that came with the kit? Post some mor photos, where and how on the vehicle have you connected the yellow feed to the main beam circuit?

It depends what OP wants for how complex the dash switch needs to be, but in simple terms as above by @mystery, all you need is:
fused power to the relay pin 30,
earth to relay pin 85,
spotlight power feed to relay pin 87 (earthed after the spotlights)
switched main beam feed to relay pin 86

It is the switched main beam feed to relay pin 86 that you can make more complex:
you can have a main beam feed going straight to the relay. this means you cannot switch the spot lights off independently and may fail the mot
you can have a simple on/off switch with a main beam feed into one side and the relay feed to pin 86 to the other. this allows the spot light to be switched off or come on with main beam controlled by the on/off switch.
you can have a three way switch (my preferred) on/off/on with a main beam feed into the switch, a fused permanent live into the switch and the the relay feed to pin 86 to the remaining terminal. this give and on with the switch, on with main beam and off options.