Installing PIAA 510 lights, switch power wire
 

I've got everything figured out except where to connect the wire that provides the switch with power. I want the lights to be able to be switched on and off independently from my stock lights, where should I connect the switch power wire and how do I locate said location?

Please let me know if you know how it can be done, I appreciate any help.

Thanks,
Jacob

Tap into a wire that's hot, run it to switch and them from the switch to the lights.

First you have to decide whether you want to be able to turn the lights on with the key off (unswitched) or have to have the key on (switched). If you want switched, then you could tap your driver side cig lighter (blue/purple on mine) since the control circuit runs on milliamps and is therefore negligible on the OEM circuit. If you want unswitched (I don't recommend this because you can kill your battery if you accidentally leave them on) then you could use the passenger side cig lighter if equipped which should have a picture of a battery on the cover. If not equipped, you could use the radio constant (yellow/red on mine IIRC) or run a separate wire from the battery.

I guess I should have been a little more detailed.

You did good but yes, be specific. Tapping into an under dash wire and sending it through a switch to the lights is a potential fire hazard. If you had said relay I wouldn't have posted. While I know what you meant, it is best to provide detail to prevent misinterpretations.

Yes you are correct. Guess sometimes the thought is in the brain but didn't translate in text.

That's how it goes sometimes. It takes a little getting used to. I remember my first class in college on technical writing. Day 1, professor calms everyone down upon arrival, all freshman of course and most on our first day in college. She says everyone take out a piece of notebook paper. So we all have pens in hand and she says make a paper airplane with the paper. Now when I was younger I actually had a book on how to make and fly paper airplanes. Yeah I loved them that much. So I made my most tried and true version. Pretty elaborate but the flight path on the thing was unquestionable. So we all finish and are staring at her with that gleam in our eyes that just proclaims mischief. She laughs and says okay let them fly. I'm sure you can picture it. Everyone laughing and airplanes flying all over the classroom. Good times. When everyone had settled back down, she then told us to retrieve our airplanes and take out another piece of paper. On it, we were instructed, to write down instructions on how to build our plane.

Now what seemed easy to us, became a real challenge to clarify in word. I regretted making my beast of a plane, not only because it was much more difficult to explain how to make, but also I felt like I was giving up trade secrets. She grabbed some random instructions from the class and read them aloud as she followed them to a tee, always picking the wrong interpretation when it was ambiguous. The results didn't even resemble a plane. Lesson learned.

And that was for paper airplanes. The stakes are higher with electrical wiring. So I hope you understand why I posted. It had nothing to do with you but just with an understanding of how instructions can be interpreted, or more importantly, misinterpreted.

Thanks for the help guys I got it working, I spliced into a white wire with a purple stripe. I believe it's wire for the headlights because the 510's only have power going to them when the headlights have power going to them.

If you think this is a fire hazard please let me know.

Again thanks again for the help,

Jacob

I absolutely understand why you stepped in and commented. Hence why I commented on the fact that I should have been more elaborate in my explanation. Honestly I'm glad you did so that there was a more accurate explanation.

Have to think more before I "talk".