greyjhu

I got a dead battery yesterday, and hooked up the battery charger. After about 15 minutes, I got the car started and drove up to Gaithersburg. Since I got the dead battery, I have been blowing the fuse for my Hella Micro DE fogs, a 20 amp fuse.

Any thoughts on why this is happening? I have the foglights hooked up to the ignition, and the 20 amp fuse blows with/without remote start, and when I throw the switch after the car is already on-

mrdeeno

it sounds like a short somewhere. you may have moved some wires around when you hooked up the charger and something may have come loose.

check your power wire to the lights again. make sure everything is insulated or covered and taped up and no exposed wire is contacting any other metal on the car. after you eliminated the wiring, check the lights themselves. i once had a short inside the housing.

greyjhu

Thanks, yeah, it sounds like there is def. some short somewhere, I just can't figure out why my foglights were working fine for more than a couple weeks, and all of a sudden (after my dead battery) I start blowing fuses, hmm....

Titand19

I agree, prob a short. check to make sure the relay is not moving around

proaudio22

Hmmm.....I'm guessing you hooked up the charger WITHOUT disconnecting the car's battery wires. That could screw up some stuff in a newer car. I'm betting it burned up (IE shorted out...) something that has to do w/ your fogs.

OscarCL3.2

wait a minute...dont u drive an 03? whas the deal with a dead battery so soon?

like everyone said, check for shorts...also, I think ST2000 had a problem with his constantly stayin on, and a while ago, I had a problem with mine blowing fuses, and I would change the fuses, and then they lights wouldnt come on at all.

I checked all fuses, and connections, and turns out it was the relay...If u ever need a relay, look at www.puma-access.com

mrdeeno

maybe the short had something to do with the battery dying.

greyjhu

I left the car radio on (not ignition), the key in position 1 overnight. That was running enough juice to dishcarge the battery.

Yesterday, after examining the lights and wiring, I reset the ground going to the relay, and also discovered that the relay had died. It was a cheap Hella relay, and got messed up when my car attempted to turn over w/o enough power in the battery, causing the relay to jam.

Now that the relay is replaced, the lights stayed on for at most a couple minutes while still, car running or off.

If I shut the hood, or the car hits a bump, the fuse blows-

I replaced the 20 amp fuse with a 25 and 30, and they all burn out. There has got to be a short somewhere.

Do you think my switch could have gone bad or is bad?? It is an Acura-TL switch.

I checked all the wiring, and from the looks of it (outside the firewall in the engine bay, and inside the cabin where the switch is located) everything is hooked up fine, and there are no visible "hot spots" where the wires could short.

I don't understand why the lights will run for at most a minute, and short, or when the hood is slammed, the fuse blows.....

This is my second time installing fogs. The last time in my Land Rover, I used a factory switch to run the lights with no problems for more than 5 years. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but there is certainly a short somewhere-

Thanks for your help, let me know what you think. I have checked everything and it looks pretty good, including installing a new relay-

-Grey

proaudio22

Grey, did you hook up the battery charger to the battery without disconnecting the car's leads? If you read the instructions on chargers, there is a nice warning about the damage that can be caused by doing this.

mrdeeno

there may be an intermittent short that happens when you hit a bump or close the hood or something. replace the tl switch with the one that came with the foglights, and see if that does anything. that way you can rule out the switch. then disconnect each foglight and turn them on and slam the hood or whatever, you may have a short inside the lamp housing. and as a last resort, just pull all your wiring and re-wire again.

greyjhu

The Hella switch is destroyed. I took it apart to determine what the wires did.

I will take apart the lamp housings first, that may be a good place to start. Thanks Mr. Deeno-

Otherwise, this will be a Sunday project-

greyjhu

Thanks to everyone's comments, I figured out what was wrong. In a nutshell, inside the projector housing the + insulating plastic melted, exposing the hot wire to the ground (not good). That was causing the fuse to blow. I used a nut as a spacer between the plastic bumper cover and the bumper, and used a self-tapping screw to secure the bracket to the bumper (works great!).

Now, the lights don't blow fuses, and won't rattle around causing the wires to get near eachother in the housing.

Thanks all for their comments-

Oh, and the charger DID NOT cause any damage whatsoever to my car, and hasn't done damage to any of my previous cars with electronic accesories.