Having issues wiring up my lights. The RIGIDs are rated at 9-15V. I get why the 8-8.5 volts on a lot of the wires won't trigger. However, the white wire does jump to 14.5v when high beams are on so why won't that trip the aux lights on? I have good current from the taps and ground. I can turn on either amber backlights or white fog lights with a 9v battery. I cannot get the lights to come on with bike voltage, either with 5-pin relay or direct taps to the white wire (on high beam) and ground. I couldn't find a 5-pin 6v relay so I guess I'm stuck with trying two 6v 4-pin relays.
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Harv,
Sounds like a few different issues here. First, it seems like you are trying to use the "white wire" to trigger a 12v relay and I don't expect that to work as you intend if the voltage doesn't drop sub 6v(it should really be sub 2v to work reliably) when the high beams are off(allowing the relay to switch off). I again suggest the HB(white/yellow) wire and a 6v relay. The relay I
linked to above IS a 5 pin relay.
Second issue, LEDs are Light Emitting Diodes and diodes are devices that only allow current to flow in one direction. So unlike old timey incandescent lights, the polarity (+/-) must be correct. The voltage fed to at least some of the headlight wires is NEG compared to ground (not POS as you may expect). I have not tested the white wire but this is true of the HB(yellow/white). If this is also true of the white then you will need to reverse the polarity of the wires (ground is now +) to power them directly on the white wire.
Third, it is less common, but some types of relays will not trigger if the polarity of the trigger wires are not correct. Again, at least some of the headlights are powered NEG compared to GND. So if you are using the NEG signal to trigger a relay it may only work if the polarity of the trigger wires are reversed. The 6v relay I
posted a link to does not care about polarity.
Sounds like you have a multimeter so you can easily test if the voltage you are getting is NEG or POS on the white wire.