Headlight wiring question

[510_dreamin]

I was following the LED lighting thread for the 620 and purchased a set of LED headlights for my 510 off of Amazon (Wisamic 5.75 LED). 

 

When I plugged it in, the headlight wouldn’t turn on. I checked another sealed beam headlight and the one already installed in my car and both worked. 

 

I was under the impression the LED headlights were plug and play. Is there a harness adaptor or anything else needed? If I need to use the harness adaptor my battery is installed in the trunk. Anything else I can wire the positive lead to?

 

thanks 

[Draker]

Make sure the polarity is correct. Unlike a light bulb a diode will only work if the power is flowing in the right direction.

[banzai510(hainz)]

to me most those LED lights a Taiwan cheap looking an no period correct on a classic Datsun.

However the LED need a load resisitor to drive the circuit (I believe)

 

You can use the starter lug to splice power.

I also think there is a Aircond wire under the fuse box that is key switchable to tun ON if needed there also

 

As Draker said LED is just a diode that passes current one way and not the other so it is polarity sensitive.

510 are switch able ground just to let you know

Edited June 18, 2019 by banzai510(hainz)

[510_dreamin]

How would I go about checking and  adjusting the polarity?

 

The photo of the plug shows a ground terminal and 2 positive terminals, one for the high beam and one for the low beam

[Draker]

2 minutes ago, 510_dreamin said:

How would I go about checking and  adjusting the polarity?

 

The photo of the plug shows a ground terminal and 2 positive terminals, one for the high beam and one for the low beam

 

Just make sure your wiring follows that order then and you should be fine. You can test with a multimeter, or test light.

[510_dreamin]

11 minutes ago, Draker said:

 

Just make sure your wiring follows that order then and you should be fine. You can test with a multimeter, or test light.

 

The wiring to the plug from the car? If not just unplug and plug in the appropriate terminals?

 

Sorry I’m new to working with electrical things

[Crashtd420]

23 minutes ago, 510_dreamin said:

 

The wiring to the plug from the car? If not just unplug and plug in the appropriate terminals?

 

Sorry I’m new to working with electrical things

Have you made sure they work?

You could check it with just the battery?

And then just verify the plug on the car has 12 volt power and the ground....

 

Edited June 18, 2019 by Crashtd420

[banzai510(hainz)]

Get a refund if possible.

 

If ground wire of your LED light has a lug then its a different type set up. Its not plug and play

 

 

Get a test light  one side grounded to chassiss  with lights off all 3 prongs will have 12volts

 

then put the headlites on and the prong that don't light goes to ground.  then when you hit the high it switches to another ground.

[510_dreamin]

27 minutes ago, banzai510(hainz) said:

Get a refund if possible.

 

If ground wire of your LED light has a lug then its a different type set up. Its not plug and play

 

 

Get a test light  one side grounded to chassiss  with lights off all 3 prongs will have 12volts

 

then put the headlites on and the prong that don't light goes to ground.  then when you hit the high it switches to another ground.

 

This is the thread I followed for the plug and play possibility 

 

 

[banzai510(hainz)]

Ask Cobra how he did his.

 

Datsun and Toyota use a switchable ground system all will have 12volts on there. then when light switch pulled it puts a ground on one of the other prongs.

 Now you need figure it out what does what Low and High

 

then test the LED system put 12volts on the plug and see what it does to turn on Corrctly and make a plug harness.

 

I would think somewhere in the instruction it will say positive switching or negative switching.

 

 

I bought a H4 harness for my 510 with uses the 510 switchable ground and coverts it to switchable power using the LOW relay and a HIGH relay

 

IF your Lamp has a wire that comes out of the 3 prong plug and is short with a round ground lu to bolt to the chassis near the lamp then its a Positive switched system

Edited June 18, 2019 by banzai510(hainz)

[cobra269]

4 hours ago, 510_dreamin said:

I was following the LED lighting thread for the 620 and purchased a set of LED headlights for my 510 off of Amazon (Wisamic 5.75 LED). 

 

When I plugged it in, the headlight wouldn’t turn on. I checked another sealed beam headlight and the one already installed in my car and both worked. 

 

I was under the impression the LED headlights were plug and play. Is there a harness adaptor or anything else needed? If I need to use the harness adaptor my battery is installed in the trunk. Anything else I can wire the positive lead to?

 

thanks 

I haven't read through all of the replies yet, but the ones I purchased were Plug & Play. Plugged them in and they worked as normal.

However, I bought a set from the same seller a few weeks back (7" for a Chevy C10) and they didn't work right out of the box. The Ground Lug and one of the Hot Wires had to be reversed in order to work.

I'm not familiar with how to remove the female connectors from the headlight molex, maybe someone else is, but all that needs to be done, is a simple wire flip. I didn't document the details for the Chevy, because it really wasn't a relevant issue I would think I would need to reflect back on. Sorry.

[cobra269]

3 hours ago, banzai510(hainz) said:

to me most those LED lights a Taiwan cheap looking an no period correct on a classic Datsun.

However the LED need a load resisitor to drive the circuit (I believe)

 

You can use the starter lug to splice power.

I also think there is a Aircond wire under the fuse box that is key switchable to tun ON if needed there also

 

As Draker said LED is just a diode that passes current one way and not the other so it is polarity sensitive.

510 are switch able ground just to let you know

Load Resistors are only needed for Turn Signals, unless you have an LED Flasher Unit...

[cobra269]

2 hours ago, banzai510(hainz) said:

Ask Cobra how he did his.

 

Datsun and Toyota use a switchable ground system all will have 12volts on there. then when light switch pulled it puts a ground on one of the other prongs.

 Now you need figure it out what does what Low and High

 

then test the LED system put 12volts on the plug and see what it does to turn on Corrctly and make a plug harness.

 

I would think somewhere in the instruction it will say positive switching or negative switching.

 

 

I bought a H4 harness for my 510 with uses the 510 switchable ground and coverts it to switchable power using the LOW relay and a HIGH relay

 

IF your Lamp has a wire that comes out of the 3 prong plug and is short with a round ground lu to bolt to the chassis near the lamp then its a Positive switched system

My 75 620 is Positive Switched. So my harness passes 2 positives and a Static (Unswitched) Ground to the harness (Not Modified) where it plugs into the headlight.

And if there is a wire hanging from the headlight itself, that is for the Halo (Angel Eyes as some call them) and it is positive to operate. I followed the link to where he purchased his headlights and they have the Halo Function, so there is 4 points of contact, 1 ground and 3 positives, 2 of the positives for High-Low-Beam function via the standard pin connection, 1 for the Halo.

Edited June 18, 2019 by cobra269

[paradime]

Unfortunately, not all standard headlight wiring systems are wired the same, so "plug and play" is false advertising. I can sympathize for what its like working with wiring, it's not my forte either. With a little patience, a 12v bulb tester ($6 at any auto parts store) some black and red 12-14 gage wire, and some crimp connecters, you can figure this out and make it work. 

 

1st step is to confirm the LED lights work and what prongs make them work. If there isn't a diagram that shows it, you'll need to test and write down witch are the ground and positive terminals on the back of the light. If lights are both high and low beam, figure out witch  prong is witch and write it down.

 

Use a piece of black wire, strip the ends and connect one side to any bare bolt to ground on the chassis, fender, or radiator mount. strip and connect one end of the red wire to the red positive battery terminal. Don't forget this is a direct connection to the battery. For safety, only strip a small bit of the positive test wire to expose just the ends of the wire and cover it with an un-crimped connecter when not using it. Only touching one prong on the back of the LED light with the red wire, then brush the black wire to all the other terminals to see if the light comes on. if not, take note of it and switch the red wire to another prong and do the same thing. Once the light comes on, see if its the high or low beam, and write down the polarity + or - of the prongs that made it work. If none of them work, check your ground wire. Chances are there will only be one ground prong and the others are High or Low positive. 

 

Second step is to modify the 510s plug wiring to match the LED headlights. 

 

510 headlights use Switched-Ground Wiring rather than switch positive like most other cars.

That means the headlights are not permanently grounded as in newer cars. 510's headlights are permanently connected to HOT positive from the Fuse Box and the Relay switches ground on and off for High beams (all 4 lights) Low beams (2 outer lights). The relay does not switch the 12V positive either. Again it switches the GROUND wires. The relay coil is powered by the GL wire from Light Switch and switched by the BR wire. 

 

On the 510 only the outside lights are both high and low beam so the plug has three prongs while the inside lights are only high beam with two prong plugs. If your LEDS are both high and low, I would put a three prong plug on both giving you four low beam lights. Two pointing forward and 2 pointing outward for greater coverage. In Cali you don't have any safety inspection so no sweat.

 

On the plugs the Red and White wire is the constant positive on all the lights and the solid Red wire is switched ground for the high beam. On the 2 outside lights the Red Black wire is switch ground for low beam. 

 

Once you have the correct + - polarity and high low position of the LED lights you can modify the stock plug wiring to make the LEDs work.

 

Best of luck man.

Edited June 18, 2019 by paradime

[cobra269]

3 hours ago, paradime said:

Unfortunately, not all standard headlight wiring systems are wired the same, so "plug and play" is false advertising. I can sympathize for what its like working with wiring, it's not my forte either. With a little patience, a 12v bulb tester ($6 at any auto parts store) some black and red 12-14 gage wire, and some crimp connecters, you can figure this out and make it work. 

 

1st step is to confirm the LED lights work and what prongs make them work. If there isn't a diagram that shows it, you'll need to test and write down witch are the ground and positive terminals on the back of the light. If lights are both high and low beam, figure out witch  prong is witch and write it down.

 

Use a piece of black wire, strip the ends and connect one side to any bare bolt to ground on the chassis, fender, or radiator mount. strip and connect one end of the red wire to the red positive battery terminal. Don't forget this is a direct connection to the battery. For safety, only strip a small bit of the positive test wire to expose just the ends of the wire and cover it with an un-crimped connecter when not using it. Only touching one prong on the back of the LED light with the red wire, then brush the black wire to all the other terminals to see if the light comes on. if not, take note of it and switch the red wire to another prong and do the same thing. Once the light comes on, see if its the high or low beam, and write down the polarity + or - of the prongs that made it work. If none of them work, check your ground wire. Chances are there will only be one ground prong and the others are High or Low positive. 

 

Second step is to modify the 510s plug wiring to match the LED headlights. 

 

510 headlights use Switched-Ground Wiring rather than switch positive like most other cars.

That means the headlights are not permanently grounded as in newer cars. 510's headlights are permanently connected to HOT positive from the Fuse Box and the Relay switches ground on and off for High beams (all 4 lights) Low beams (2 outer lights). The relay does not switch the 12V positive either. Again it switches the GROUND wires. The relay coil is powered by the GL wire from Light Switch and switched by the BR wire. 

 

On the 510 only the outside lights are both high and low beam so the plug has three prongs while the inside lights are only high beam with two prong plugs. If your LEDS are both high and low, I would put a three prong plug on both giving you four low beam lights. Two pointing forward and 2 pointing outward for greater coverage. In Cali you don't have any safety inspection so no sweat.

 

On the plugs the Red and White wire is the constant positive on all the lights and the solid Red wire is switched ground for the high beam. On the 2 outside lights the Red Black wire is switch ground for low beam. 

 

Once you have the correct + - polarity and high low position of the LED lights you can modify the stock plug wiring to make the LEDs work.

 

Best of luck man.

"so "plug and play" is false advertising"

The lights linked in my Original Post are "Plug and Play" for the 620 and most vehicles (Standard Wiring), other than what is described in the post about mounting...

As for the rest of your comment, thumbs up!

Edited June 19, 2019 by cobra269

[510_dreamin]

The good news is a I got the LEDs to work working with the plug and moving it around only plugging in 2 of the 3 prongs.

 

The bad news is it created an issue with the taillights that the brake light on the driver side is always illuminated when the headlights are on. And when the headlights are off it’s brighter on the passenger side when I apply the brakes. Only way they equally illumaite is if the headlights are on and I apply the brakes. Happens with either the factory or LED headlights. 

 

Any ideas? 

[paradime]

Sorry cobra269, that wasn't directed at you, I thought the Amazon ad used those words. 

 

53 minutes ago, 510_dreamin said:

The good news is a I got the LEDs to work working with the plug and moving it around only plugging in 2 of the 3 prongs.

 

The bad news is it created an issue with the taillights that the brake light on the driver side is always illuminated when the headlights are on. And when the headlights are off it’s brighter on the passenger side when I apply the brakes. Only way they equally illumaite is if the headlights are on and I apply the brakes. Happens with either the factory or LED headlights. 

 

Any ideas? 

 

Buy a 620

[510_dreamin]

Disregard. Problem fixed as easily as unplugging the offending bulb and replugging it in. 70s electronics. So simple yet so not simple. 

 

Thanks again all for the help today  

 

Happy Motoring 

[cobra269]

On 6/18/2019 at 9:59 PM, 510_dreamin said:

Disregard. Problem fixed as easily as unplugging the offending bulb and replugging it in. 70s electronics. So simple yet so not simple. 

 

Thanks again all for the help today  

 

Happy Motoring 

So those LED Headlights are working now?

Pics appreciated!!!

 

[G8KeaPoR]

led Bulbs all require a ballast. Some bulbs have micro ballasts built in but those like any fire that replacement are garbag, provide little to no visibility improvements, tend to be illegal, and create glare for oncoming drivers increasing your chances of being in a head on.  as someone that was almost killed in a head on two days before my first anniversary (not due to headlight glare) but still had I been in my dime they wouldn’t’t have Life flighted me so you have to cut me slack when I rail against incorrect conversions.  You can get an adapter from squared motor works so that you can run a real led with ballast and that allows you to replace the halogen projector with a real led projector all from Morimoto and it comes with the harness for a more plug and play feel plus it gives you relays.  Just some food for thought.