I was putting HID off road lights on my Jeep today with a relay and switch. I am using a 4 pin Dorman relay 84601. I hooked up my battery to pin 30, my ground to pin 85, my switch to 86 and my lights to pin 87. So i put my direct fused battery to pin 30 and when i try to hook up 87 my lights turn on without the ignition on or any other wires hooked up. As far as i know they are not supposed to turn on until getting signal from 86 and 85 which activate the coil and closes the switch. I bought the two relay's with the same part number and both do the same thing right out of the package. Is there something i am missing here or are both of my relay's bad?

 

Where did you tap in for your switched power source and do your lights stay on regardless of flipping the switch on/off?

 

Possibly a bad relay?
Possibly a bad switch?
And possibly a loose nut at the controls?

Disconnect the power to the switche. See if the lights turn off?

 

Got out my meter today and checked for continuity across 30 and 87 on my relay. With nothing hooked up it shows continuity across the N/O switch.

I have 30 hooked directly to the battery with a fuse in between.
I have 87 hooked to my lights / black wires are grounded to the frame red wires to 87
I have 85 going to the ground on the battery.
I have my switch powered only when the key is on, it is grounded, and when activated the power goes out to 86 on the relay.

If i switch direct battery to 86 and switched power to 30 my lights work like they should with the switch, the only problem is the relay is always activated which would cause a battery drain.

I guess NIB does not always mean verified good.

 

Does this even work without the "battery power" connected to terminal #86? If it doesn't, then you have made a mistake somewhere.

 

If i hook up 30 to battery and 87 to my lights with nothing else hooked up and the ignition not on, my lights come on. If i hook up the other 2 wires and turn my ignition on and try the switch there is no change.





Across 30 and 87 it shows as a normally open switch and 85 to 86 it shows as a coil.

 

Got some new relay's and put them in the way i originally had them. Now they work just like they are supposed to.

This is how i hooked them up again.

I have 30 hooked directly to the battery with a fuse in between.
I have 87 hooked to my lights / black wires are grounded to the frame red wires to 87
I have 85 going to the ground on the battery.
I have my switch powered only when the key is on, it is grounded, and when activated the power goes out to 86 on the relay.

So the problem was that i had continuity going from 30 to 87 on my old/NIB relay's. Guessing the manufacture wired it internally as a normally closed switch or used the wrong parts inside?