foglight amp question

I am looking into what my options are as far as lighting up front goes, I want something that is bright enough to bring in a 747 if you guys catch my drift. i am wondering if you guys know how big of lights I would be able to mount amps wise and not have to worry about adding an alt. also does anyone have any suggestions for good lights?

First choice would be HID lights, less amps and brighter.
The next, more expensive, are LED's, even less amps and brighter.
How many you can add will depend on how much power your truck takes to run now with the options it has.
With 2 batteries that are really just used to start the truck you have a lot of power in reserve once the truck is running.
I would think depending on the size of your stock alt. that 50-60 amps worth of lights should be easy to run.
Just some advice on adding lights, use relay's to carry the current instead of the switch. You can run 4 HID's through one relay. When they fire is the most amps they pull. Once on they dont pull very much.

I'm not sure where most are getting HID lighting, but I just stumbled upon this comapny looking at upgrades for motorhomes. Most motorhomes use the same headlight assy from various mfg ie: ford, honda, bmw etc.
I talked to the guy and he can do trucks too.
http://www.rvheadlights.com/index.html

light force lights.

You're not limited by the alternator...the supply wires to the lamps will melt or burn well before the alternator gets overloaded. Chances are the wires going to the foglights are 16AWG, which equals a 10A circuit. W=VxA, so 120W total, or two 60W lamps, is all that circuit can handle, without ANY safety factor.

If you want brighter, you will need to use relays and and fused circuits directly from the battery, using the factory fog circuit as a trigger.

You are limited by the alternator. If you are pulling more power than what the alternator is supplying then you will run the batteries dead.
If you re-read what was asked was how many lights could be added. You can add as many as you want as long as the output of the alternator can keep up. If not you will be stranded.
Stock headlights and fogs yes you are correct. But I would not use the stock wiring for anything more than trigger wires for the relays.

Rigid Industries, awesome lights extremely bright

Mud digger said:

Rigid Industries, awesome lights extremely bright

Click to expand...

+1

I replaced 3 KC 57 Series lights (long range, 167k candlepower each) with a 20" Rigid E Series. The Rigid draws less amps, but I haven't finished the install yet. I'll post my thoughts when I'm up and running.

I have a couple of buddy's with the Rigid LED Light Bars on their sidexsides. They are VERY BRIGHT. But I cant see spending that kind of coin on them. They are not cheap.

Snake said:

+1

I replaced 3 KC 57 Series lights (long range, 167k candlepower each) with a 20" Rigid E Series. The Rigid draws less amps, but I haven't finished the install yet. I'll post my thoughts when I'm up and running.

Click to expand...

Have you finished your install yet?

Man, that's a sore subject. LOL

Truck was supposed to go back to the body shop early last week, but they were booked solid. Same story this week, and same for next week. Made the decision today to find another body shop and pay out of pocket rather than let the existing shop fix the stuff I wasn't happy with.

Soon, I hope. :toast:

Snake said:

Man, that's a sore subject. LOL

Truck was supposed to go back to the body shop early last week, but they were booked solid. Same story this week, and same for next week. Made the decision today to find another body shop and pay out of pocket rather than let the existing shop fix the stuff I wasn't happy with.

Soon, I hope. :toast:

Click to expand...

Haha damn. Well hopefully it gets sorted out and we get to see what you come up with.

Good luck

Much appreciated. This has been a huge PITA and I'm really looking forward to getting things fixed and back operational.

Still not happy with the body work, but I played with the mount and wiring this evening. The Rigid stuff isn't cheap, but in this instance I believe I got what I paid for. This 20" bar is easily twice as bright as the three KC lights it replaced.

Snake said:

Still not happy with the body work, but I played with the mount and wiring this evening. The Rigid stuff isn't cheap, but in this instance I believe I got what I paid for. This 20" bar is easily twice as bright as the three KC lights it replaced.

Click to expand...

Good to hear you got to put some time into it finally.

I'll get some pics up soon also. All we did weld a piece of flat stock to each KC bracket and drilled a hole in it. The Rigid mount bolts right onto that and the light itself fits perfectly in the center hole of the bumper. There's a uniform space all the way around the light (roughly 1/2").

Mike, how could you do all this and not get us pictures!!!!!

LOL I barely got this thing wired yesterday before it got dark. As it sits, I've half azzed the last two connections and it's driving me crazy. How hard was I pushing to get it operational yesterday? One of my splices in the engine bay is a wire nut.

Pics below

Very discrete that's for sure. Looks really good,.