Wiring to the Upfitter Switch

[JaredW]

I'm putting in the upfitter switch and will be switching my light pods over to that instead of the single switch they are run on currently. My question is should I make new harness's since the ones I have currently have relays already that are triggered all by the same switch. I could break them out separate to the upfitter switches but then I'm running 2 relays essentially.

The second part of that question is that 1 switch will carry 165 watts, is that too much for that gauge wire? The upfitter seems to be 16ga leads. The other runs will all be 80w each.

 

[8ball_99]

So watts divided by voltage= amps. So 165 watts is 13.75 amps. 16ga is a little borderline, but the length of the wire matters a lot. There is charts online you can find. Probably 5 foot run or so is fine. Longer and you would want larger gauge wire. Nothing wrong with having two relays on the same circuit. Probably don't need it from what you are describing though.

I have onboard air setup on my truck. My compressors are on my upfitter switches. The compressors are fed by a 4ga wire. I have a heavy relay by the compressors and the upfitter relay just triggers the larger relay. Not a big deal to do it that way for larger loads. Technically the relay built into the upfitter is not needed in that case. But it's built in, so you just run with it, lol

 

[JaredW]

So watts divided by voltage= amps. So 165 watts is 13.75 amps. 16ga is a little borderline, but the length of the wire matters a lot. There is charts online you can find. Probably 5 foot run or so is fine. Longer and you would want larger gauge wire. Nothing wrong with having two relays on the same circuit. Probably don't need it from what you are describing though.

I would end up longer than 5ft, I'll have to go from the cab out to the front of the truck for that run. The harnesses that I have currently are all 14ga wire but it would still have to go down to that 16ga in the upfitter harness.

I may just use the harnesses I have already then if 2 relays won't hurt anything. I didn't think it would cause any issues but just wanted to double check.

 

[8ball_99]

I would end up longer than 5ft, I'll have to go from the cab out to the front of the truck for that run. The harnesses that I have currently are all 14ga wire but it would still have to go down to that 16ga in the upfitter harness.

I may just use the harnesses I have already then if 2 relays won't hurt anything. I didn't think it would cause any issues but just wanted to double check.

Yeah I mean personally if it were mine. I'd just use a 16ga from the upfitter to trigger a relay for the lights under the hood. Technically you wouldn't have more then a foot or two of 16ga wire if you connected 14ga to the upfitter switches harness. 16ga can handle up to 20amps on a short run. So it's not like you would have a problem doing that with a 15 or even 20 amp fuse. It would work fine either way. Mostly comes down to preference.

 

[GATORB8]

I would end up longer than 5ft, I'll have to go from the cab out to the front of the truck for that run. The harnesses that I have currently are all 14ga wire but it would still have to go down to that 16ga in the upfitter harness.

I may just use the harnesses I have already then if 2 relays won't hurt anything. I didn't think it would cause any issues but just wanted to double check.

Certainly doesn’t hurt to double relay. Sounds like you may as well do it just to eliminate rewiring.

On our Jeep, I ran our Winch cutoff solenoid (~300 amp) off our factory relayed aux switches until I ran out of switches.

 

[JaredW]

I think I'll just use the upfitter to trigger my current harnesses then. Appreciate it!