Do you have factory upfitters? If so you just need to use an upfitter harness. If you ordered direct from them im not sure what they provide. I can tell you our ditch kits include our a-pillar harness that connects right to the upfitters.
yes, while trouble-shooting i tried the the manual button, not intending to use it permanently. i was going to go with Aux 6 (yellow/orange). I think from other responses i need to connect it to under the dash, just not sure how. Do all three connect together?
FYI, that chart is preproduction. Here is the one in the manual.Pod Light goes into harness. Harness runs along firewall to upfitter area. In the upfitter wiring area, you're going to choose 1 of 6 upfitter switch wires and make a connection.
Pod lights are low current, so I recommend switches 2-3. Save switch 1 for higher current requirements (light bars, etc). 4-6 are very low current but could work, depending on what lights you are using. Most pod lights seem to draw about ~1 amp per light but entirely depends on the brand.
SS3 Current (amps @ 13.2V): Sport: 1.1, Pro: 2.7
SSC2 Current (amps @ 12.8V): Sport: 0.6, Pro: 2
Diode Dynamics lists these specs, and both are within range of all 6 upfitters.
You will attach the RED(POS) wire from your harness to the color associated with the Aux of your choice. Your ground will be attached to any of the bolts you see with existing grounds up on the firewall near same area as the upfitter wiring. Crimp on a ring style connector on the ground, place it under the bolt of your choosing and you are done.
For your positive connection, you want to use a durable butt splice (unless you have plans to ever remove these pod lights, but we can discuss that later if needed). My recommendation are these exact splices:
https://www.amazon.com/Screwish-Connectors-Waterproof-Weatherproof-Automotive/dp/B0B3QHQ56G/ref=sr_1_5?crid=18JMW506SGJYN&keywords=solder+seal+wire+connectors+screwish&qid=1663697637&sprefix=solder+seal+wire+connectors+screwish,aps,96&sr=8-5
You'll need a heat gun or a lighter, but these form a soldered connection without a soldering iron. Absolutely amazing when you don't need a disconnect. Watch a YouTube video if you are unfamiliar with this style of splice as it works slightly differently than others.
So to recap:
Pod light to harness.
Harness positive to your chosen upfitter switch
Harness negative to ground.
If your harness has a relay/switch built in (depends on how you order the harness), you want to cut the harness right before you get to the relay and use the pos/neg at that point. You only need relays if you have to power something that has a higher current draw than the upfitter allows.
Personally, I like to put a DT style connector at every splice point for ease of troubleshooting/removal etc, but there is a slight learning curve and you need specialty gear. I would butt splice for simplicity.
Yeah I've seen these numbers floating around (from Ford even), but from the gauge of the wires in the few Bronco's I've worked on, I have a hard time trusting these numbers. 10amp is peak load for aux 4-6 but I wouldn't want to try to sustain anywhere near that.. Once you add your own wiring to circuit, the numbers just get worse. From memory, I want to say they used 16 or 18g wire which is really anemic for those circuits in particular.FYI, that chart is preproduction. Here is the one in the manual.
the difference between this and the Diode harness is that the red goes to the battery with Diode. Then a pigtail goes to the auxiliary wire.Do you have factory upfitters? If so you just need to use an upfitter harness. If you ordered direct from them im not sure what they provide. I can tell you our ditch kits include our a-pillar harness that connects right to the upfitters.
But it sounds like you are trying to connect a regular switch harness to your upfitters? Which isn't how they work.
You need a harness like this which we include with our kits:
The problem with Diode Dynamics "kits" is their harness. People complain about them all the time because it's very confusing with all the wiring. Our kits are very simple. We give you just the wires you need, no switch needed if you have upfitters.
Yup, only 16 awg and 18 awg, which seems like a silly place to cheap out. 30 amps over a 16 awg wire, even over a short run, seems risky. I am using a number of the factory switches, but stay well below the amperage rating out of an abundance of caution.
I've done a few installed with the DD harness and I agree - its not particularly high quality or the proper harness for the Bronco application when upfitters are involved. Even the cheap nightcore option from Amazon feels more premium and costs FAR less.The problem with Diode Dynamics "kits" is their harness. People complain about them all the time because it's very confusing with all the wiring. Our kits are very simple. We give you just the wires you need, no switch needed if you have upfitters.
You shouldn't honestly be using a switch since you have upfitters, because your upfitter is powering the lights.
You basically need to DISCONNECT the switch they gave you from the harness, and instead use that little pigtail they gave you instead of the switch.
Again it's a lot of extra chaos going on. Their goal was to have one "harness" kit so it worked on all the trucks regardless of wiring. BUT it's also confusing and a lot of extra stuff. As you need to wire in a relay now, which honestly is not needed if you have upfitters, but you need to use it in this case.
So you need to connect the power lead to your battery (it has the fuse on it) and then the ground point as well.
Then you are going to disconnect the switch and instead connect the pigtail. Here are their instructions
METHOD TWO - Use OEM Upfitter/Auxiliary Switches. An extra wire pigtail is included with this harness, which should be used if you plan to control your lights with factory-installed “OEM” switches. At the white connector, unplug the switch wires from the harness, and connect the extra pigtail here instead. Using the butt connectors at the end of the pigtail, crimp the yellow wire and blue wire to OEM Auxiliary Switch wire leads. The yellow wire will activate the main LED power, and the blue wire will activate the backlight LED power. NOTE: The main LED power will be drawn from the battery, so any OEM Auxiliary Switch wires can be used, regardless of amperage rating.
OR make your life easy, grab our harness
SS3 without backlighting: https://www.4x4truckleds.com/crysta...s-diode-dynamics-rigid-industries-kc-hilites/
SS3 with backlighting: https://www.4x4truckleds.com/crysta...arness-2x-dt-4-pin-connectors-diode-dynamics/
Really easy with our harness
