How to disable the speed limitations for the side mirror lights?

[EOSeabee]

Does anyone know how to disable the speed limitations for the side mirror lights?

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[Smokey142]

Also would like to know, maybe some has done this in forescan

 

[BigRed13]

I know my truck has them, might be on the Forscan spreadsheet for it on fordtrucks.com I’d be the test goat but am away from the Bronco right now.

 

[emulous74]

It's been discussed before and no one has found anything in Forscan and some F-150 folks have been able to to use a jumper on the wire harness, but I don't think we have the same wire harness in the Bronco.

 

[BigRed13]

It's been discussed before and no one has found anything in Forscan and some F-150 folks have been able to to use a jumper on the wire harness, but I don't think we have the same wire harness in the Bronco.

This is the same thing I was able to find in the Super Duty forum. You use a jumper that bypasses the signal to shut off at a certain speed. I’d imagine it could be done but someone would have to check the harness for sure.

 

[Tex]

Bronco does not share the same wiring harness as the F-150
Without getting into details that are probably even over my head, basically the switches are sending a momentary (not continuous!) ground to a module which then takes that input and powers a circuit to the lights. The power is 100% controlled straight from the module, and there's no "tricking" it with a jumper wire.
If there is a way to disable the speed limitation, it will be in the software, and currently there is no known procedure in forscan for it and probably won't be. The only other potential way would be a module similar to 4DTech's can opener, but they make modules like that for other Fords and they've already said they're not able to make one.

TL;DR no, not unless you're REALLY good at automotive computer programming and/or are capable of making some sort of arduino+relay board that bypasses the module.

Don't fret though, you have another option, though it's not quite as elegant.
You can tap into the wire going to the lights and power it with a different circuit, then cut the OEM wire so you're not back feeding voltage into the module.
I actually did this today so it's fresh on my mind.

At the hood hinges on both sides, you'll see two rather large 16-ish pin connectors just forward of the hinges along the fender. This is the connector that goes to the mirror assembly. On the driver side, you'll see a solid brown wire (if you look close, you'll see it's marked pin #8), that's your power wire to the spot light. On the passenger side, there will be a purple wire with a brown stripe, again on pin #8, that powers the passenger spot light. These are the two wires you'll tap into and run to your own switch. Before you start cutting and splicing, take a multimeter and verify that when you power the lights on you get voltage on that wire, and when you turn the lights off you lose voltage, just as a precaution in case Ford changed the wiring after mine. You can shove the probe into the connector without disassembling anything. Once verified, find a good open spot to tap into the wire, then cut the supply wire in front of your tap (wire goes from mirror to connector and forward from there). Give yourself enough room to splice that wire back together if you abandon the idea years from now and want to revert back to stock function (who knows, someone might find a workaround in forscan). Don't try to power the lights until you've cut the wire going to the module, I don't know if it'll brick the module by sending 12V to it, but there's no sense in finding out. Insulate or shrinkwrap the exposed wire, run the wires to an aux switch or whatever you're using, tidy everything up, and you're all set.

I wired the two mirror spots to my rock lights on AUX 3. I figured since they're designed to be area/periphery lighting, they'd compliment the rock lights when I use them as they're not high lumen ditch lights that will blind a spotter, and if I needed the spots to see something beside me (looking for a campsite, finding a lost item on the side of the road, keeping an eye on the terrain next to me, checking the mailbox at night, etc.), having the rock lights turn on with them wouldn't be a detriment in those situations. I lose the ability to individually select them, but I've never encountered a situation where being able to select only one side has benefitted me much at all. Good news though, you can wire them up however you like, put the left on AUX 1 and the right on AUX 6, install more switches, or whatever else you want to do. If you do end up wiring them in a different way, I'd be interested to know how and why you did, I might want to copy you and tell my wife I came up with the idea LOL

 

[AKBronc49]

Bronco does not share the same wiring harness as the F-150
Without getting into details that are probably even over my head, basically the switches are sending a momentary (not continuous!) ground to a module which then takes that input and powers a circuit to the lights. The power is 100% controlled straight from the module, and there's no "tricking" it with a jumper wire.
If there is a way to disable the speed limitation, it will be in the software, and currently there is no known procedure in forscan for it and probably won't be. The only other potential way would be a module similar to 4DTech's can opener, but they make modules like that for other Fords and they've already said they're not able to make one.

TL;DR no, not unless you're REALLY good at automotive computer programming and/or are capable of making some sort of arduino+relay board that bypasses the module.

Don't fret though, you have another option, though it's not quite as elegant.
You can tap into the wire going to the lights and power it with a different circuit, then cut the OEM wire so you're not back feeding voltage into the module.
I actually did this today so it's fresh on my mind.

At the hood hinges on both sides, you'll see two rather large 16-ish pin connectors just forward of the hinges along the fender. This is the connector that goes to the mirror assembly. On the driver side, you'll see a solid brown wire (if you look close, you'll see it's marked pin #8), that's your power wire to the spot light. On the passenger side, there will be a purple wire with a brown stripe, again on pin #8, that powers the passenger spot light. These are the two wires you'll tap into and run to your own switch. Before you start cutting and splicing, take a multimeter and verify that when you power the lights on you get voltage on that wire, and when you turn the lights off you lose voltage, just as a precaution in case Ford changed the wiring after mine. You can shove the probe into the connector without disassembling anything. Once verified, find a good open spot to tap into the wire, then cut the supply wire in front of your tap (wire goes from mirror to connector and forward from there). Give yourself enough room to splice that wire back together if you abandon the idea years from now and want to revert back to stock function (who knows, someone might find a workaround in forscan). Don't try to power the lights until you've cut the wire going to the module, I don't know if it'll brick the module by sending 12V to it, but there's no sense in finding out. Insulate or shrinkwrap the exposed wire, run the wires to an aux switch or whatever you're using, tidy everything up, and you're all set.

I wired the two mirror spots to my rock lights on AUX 3. I figured since they're designed to be area/periphery lighting, they'd compliment the rock lights when I use them as they're not high lumen ditch lights that will blind a spotter, and if I needed the spots to see something beside me (looking for a campsite, finding a lost item on the side of the road, keeping an eye on the terrain next to me, checking the mailbox at night, etc.), having the rock lights turn on with them wouldn't be a detriment in those situations. I lose the ability to individually select them, but I've never encountered a situation where being able to select only one side has benefitted me much at all. Good news though, you can wire them up however you like, put the left on AUX 1 and the right on AUX 6, install more switches, or whatever else you want to do. If you do end up wiring them in a different way, I'd be interested to know how and why you did, I might want to copy you and tell my wife I came up with the idea LOL

My man! Nice!

 

[mcinfantry]

Bronco does not share the same wiring harness as the F-150
Without getting into details that are probably even over my head, basically the switches are sending a momentary (not continuous!) ground to a module which then takes that input and powers a circuit to the lights. The power is 100% controlled straight from the module, and there's no "tricking" it with a jumper wire.
If there is a way to disable the speed limitation, it will be in the software, and currently there is no known procedure in forscan for it and probably won't be. The only other potential way would be a module similar to 4DTech's can opener, but they make modules like that for other Fords and they've already said they're not able to make one.

TL;DR no, not unless you're REALLY good at automotive computer programming and/or are capable of making some sort of arduino+relay board that bypasses the module.

Don't fret though, you have another option, though it's not quite as elegant.
You can tap into the wire going to the lights and power it with a different circuit, then cut the OEM wire so you're not back feeding voltage into the module.
I actually did this today so it's fresh on my mind.

At the hood hinges on both sides, you'll see two rather large 16-ish pin connectors just forward of the hinges along the fender. This is the connector that goes to the mirror assembly. On the driver side, you'll see a solid brown wire (if you look close, you'll see it's marked pin #8), that's your power wire to the spot light. On the passenger side, there will be a purple wire with a brown stripe, again on pin #8, that powers the passenger spot light. These are the two wires you'll tap into and run to your own switch. Before you start cutting and splicing, take a multimeter and verify that when you power the lights on you get voltage on that wire, and when you turn the lights off you lose voltage, just as a precaution in case Ford changed the wiring after mine. You can shove the probe into the connector without disassembling anything. Once verified, find a good open spot to tap into the wire, then cut the supply wire in front of your tap (wire goes from mirror to connector and forward from there). Give yourself enough room to splice that wire back together if you abandon the idea years from now and want to revert back to stock function (who knows, someone might find a workaround in forscan). Don't try to power the lights until you've cut the wire going to the module, I don't know if it'll brick the module by sending 12V to it, but there's no sense in finding out. Insulate or shrinkwrap the exposed wire, run the wires to an aux switch or whatever you're using, tidy everything up, and you're all set.

I wired the two mirror spots to my rock lights on AUX 3. I figured since they're designed to be area/periphery lighting, they'd compliment the rock lights when I use them as they're not high lumen ditch lights that will blind a spotter, and if I needed the spots to see something beside me (looking for a campsite, finding a lost item on the side of the road, keeping an eye on the terrain next to me, checking the mailbox at night, etc.), having the rock lights turn on with them wouldn't be a detriment in those situations. I lose the ability to individually select them, but I've never encountered a situation where being able to select only one side has benefitted me much at all. Good news though, you can wire them up however you like, put the left on AUX 1 and the right on AUX 6, install more switches, or whatever else you want to do. If you do end up wiring them in a different way, I'd be interested to know how and why you did, I might want to copy you and tell my wife I came up with the idea LOL

Why not use a diode? Or were you thinking that may still be too risky if it fails?

I used to use them for a switch override for electric fans

 

[Tex]

Why not use a diode? Or were you thinking that may still be too risky if it fails?

I used to use them for a switch override for electric fans

Oh, for sure, my first thought went to diodes. They're a great idea and they would certainly retain full OEM function, but there were two problems with that
-I didn't have any yesterday
-I don't trust myself to size them correctly or get the polarity right

If you give yourself enough room where you cut the wire, it shouldn't be a big deal at all to splice in a diode to regain OEM function, but I would also put a diode in the AUX wire so the module power doesn't back feed into anything else you might have wired up on that circuit. I have a 60W load on AUX 3 not including the mirror lights (soon to be more), and the module was theoretically only intended to power those two lights, which I imagine couldn't be more than 10W a piece. Best case it shuts itself off and resets before any damage is done, not so great would be to throw a code that you'd have to clear, bad would be frying the relay for the lights, worst case you fry the entire thing.

I did notice that the power coming out of the module was 11.4V compared to 12.8V coming from the AUX switch. I'm not familiar enough with the way these circuits work to know if that's something significant that should give me pause from running a diode to accomplish that task.

With the way spare availability is today, if I fry a module it could be months before another is sourced. My wife's expedition was in the shop for two months waiting on a wiring harness, and they eventually had someone build one from scratch. I couldn't imagine waiting on a module from a vehicle that only has a fraction of the sales as the expedition. I'm pretty sure those modules are buried so far up into the dash that if I pull it out someone might crown me king of England, and I'm too busy to be dealing with politics right now. So that's why I decided to play it safe and not use diodes until someone more familiar with this stuff can say "Yeah dude, no problem, just grab you some of these amazon link and put the line thing this direction".

 

[ShallowHal]

Bronco does not share the same wiring harness as the F-150
Without getting into details that are probably even over my head, basically the switches are sending a momentary (not continuous!) ground to a module which then takes that input and powers a circuit to the lights. The power is 100% controlled straight from the module, and there's no "tricking" it with a jumper wire.
If there is a way to disable the speed limitation, it will be in the software, and currently there is no known procedure in forscan for it and probably won't be. The only other potential way would be a module similar to 4DTech's can opener, but they make modules like that for other Fords and they've already said they're not able to make one.

TL;DR no, not unless you're REALLY good at automotive computer programming and/or are capable of making some sort of arduino+relay board that bypasses the module.

Don't fret though, you have another option, though it's not quite as elegant.
You can tap into the wire going to the lights and power it with a different circuit, then cut the OEM wire so you're not back feeding voltage into the module.
I actually did this today so it's fresh on my mind.

At the hood hinges on both sides, you'll see two rather large 16-ish pin connectors just forward of the hinges along the fender. This is the connector that goes to the mirror assembly. On the driver side, you'll see a solid brown wire (if you look close, you'll see it's marked pin #8), that's your power wire to the spot light. On the passenger side, there will be a purple wire with a brown stripe, again on pin #8, that powers the passenger spot light. These are the two wires you'll tap into and run to your own switch. Before you start cutting and splicing, take a multimeter and verify that when you power the lights on you get voltage on that wire, and when you turn the lights off you lose voltage, just as a precaution in case Ford changed the wiring after mine. You can shove the probe into the connector without disassembling anything. Once verified, find a good open spot to tap into the wire, then cut the supply wire in front of your tap (wire goes from mirror to connector and forward from there). Give yourself enough room to splice that wire back together if you abandon the idea years from now and want to revert back to stock function (who knows, someone might find a workaround in forscan). Don't try to power the lights until you've cut the wire going to the module, I don't know if it'll brick the module by sending 12V to it, but there's no sense in finding out. Insulate or shrinkwrap the exposed wire, run the wires to an aux switch or whatever you're using, tidy everything up, and you're all set.

I wired the two mirror spots to my rock lights on AUX 3. I figured since they're designed to be area/periphery lighting, they'd compliment the rock lights when I use them as they're not high lumen ditch lights that will blind a spotter, and if I needed the spots to see something beside me (looking for a campsite, finding a lost item on the side of the road, keeping an eye on the terrain next to me, checking the mailbox at night, etc.), having the rock lights turn on with them wouldn't be a detriment in those situations. I lose the ability to individually select them, but I've never encountered a situation where being able to select only one side has benefitted me much at all. Good news though, you can wire them up however you like, put the left on AUX 1 and the right on AUX 6, install more switches, or whatever else you want to do. If you do end up wiring them in a different way, I'd be interested to know how and why you did, I might want to copy you and tell my wife I came up with the idea LOL

Which wire is the one that you need to cut going to the module?

 

[Copper Red NC]

Figured I’d mention this…

I was able to tap into the OEM wires without cutting anything and without any diodes with no issues. Maintained OEM function of lights and have them working on an AUX switch so they don’t turn off after 5 mph

However thinking about redoing it and adding in the puddle lights with diodes so I get both of the mirror lights to come on with the same AUX switch while maintaining the OEM function of everything

 

[buzpro]

how about the front facing camera? that's also speed limited. Any work arounds on that?

 

[Tor148]

Figured I’d mention this…

I was able to tap into the OEM wires without cutting anything and without any diodes with no issues. Maintained OEM function of lights and have them working on an AUX switch so they don’t turn off after 5 mph

However thinking about redoing it and adding in the puddle lights with diodes so I get both of the mirror lights to come on with the same AUX switch while maintaining the OEM function of everything

Write up?
Pictures?
Help!!!
Very interested if you could share you wisdom on how you did this.

 

[Copper Red NC]

how about the front facing camera? that's also speed limited. Any work arounds on that?

Front camera stays on in the off-road drive modes which is really the only time I use it at higher speeds so I haven’t felt a need.

 

[Copper Red NC]

Write up?
Pictures?
Help!!!
Very interested if you could share you wisdom on how you did this.

Yea I can do that! I’ll be back by the vehicle this weekend so I can take some pics then. It’s similar to what Tex did earlier in the thread, just no wire cutting and I retained the OEM functions!

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