Finally rewired my Halos and they're bitchin' again!

[Junior]

Well I ain't gonna retell the saga of my Halos and their troubles - many folks had the same woes.

But it's been about ten months since they were last working. I've been sitting on new inverters from Focuztech for about five months, and sitting on my duff for all of it.

Along the way, the switch for my GSM fan mod broke, so I came up with an idea to remount those two switches on my lower dash, plus one for the Halos. When I looked at switches, I found some nice ones with LED pilot indicators on them, and bought three.





I quickly realized that the ESP mod breaks the circuit, rather than completes it, so a correctly-oriented, lighted switch becomes complicated. I sent out a beacon, and PowerWagon896 and plcman (and antolod and others) helped me out with figuring out how to wire a relay into the ESP circuit so that it effectively "reverses" the circuit.

So I finally got all my ducks in a row and yanked the fascia, and went to it. The easiest circuit was the Halos - I pulled 12v from behind the cigarette lighter, and ran that through the switch, up to the new inverters, and grounded them there. Beautiful! I wired them independent of the parking lamp circuit, so I can do all Halo with no amber in there.

Then I went to wire the fan switch, and ran into a different issue with the lighted switch: since it's the ground (in this case) that the switch is breaking, the powered LED won't work without its own relay too. Dang.

But, by this time, I already knew that the LEDs on the switches were WAAAAAY too loud for me. The one on the Halo switch lights up my whole door panel, and most of my leg, and yeah, no thanks.

Imagine this with no ambient light:


So at the end of it (or at least at present), I decided to forego the LEDs and keep it clean and simple. I'll get three non-lighted switches, flip the ESP one upside-down, and call it a day. Now to find some clean switches...

But all that aside, this thread's about Halos.

Daytime OFF:


Daytime ON:








And after a self-taught crash course in long-exposure photography, here they are at night:



All of these are 15 second exposures, at wide-open aperture. Dark night outside. Not bad, eh?


WHOAH!! HOLY S***!! That's one second of Halos, over a 15 second exposure! Damn.


This one I did roughly a half second of Halos, over the 15 seconds:


Getting faster:


Closed the aperture 1/3 stop (IIRC), and hit the switch as fast as I physically could:


Dig the ghost and his cigarette:


So there they are, folks. I might add more info about the wiring specifics and what I did differently with the inverters later on, but I didn't take any photos of that at the time. EDIT: I finally did that: Halo Wiring - Basics, Specifics, and Examples.

I'm gonna go outside and look at them now.


EDIT: Here's some more info I thought I already had here:

Here's where I went through the firewall:







And here's a simple schematic showing the wiring:



EDIT: There are better schematics, and a whole lot more info over here now: Halo Wiring - Basics, Specifics, and Examples.

[Magma]

Looks awesome... and some mighty fine picture taking as well!

[BobF's 6POINT1]

Yeah, he's all fancy with his new camera.

They look good and was going to mention something last night.

[FlyByU]

Looks great. Cant wait to install mine.

[LowGo]

The halos look good. Thanks for the write up (and photography lesson). Now, I've got to get around to fixing mine before March!

[elcobra44]

Great pics, man!!

[SMosher]

I'm diggin it. And the short "howto" on the camera.

[FactoryD]

You know Mike, you're OK for a guy that still lives at home!











JK. With a family like yours, I'd live there too!

Great write up.

[Junior]

Looks awesome... and some mighty fine picture taking as well!

Thank you sir!

Yeah, he's all fancy with his new camera.

Ha ha, wait till you see my wedding portfolio, toughguy.

They look good and was going to mention something last night.

Thanks buddy.

Looks great. Cant wait to install mine.

Thanks Dan. I've done it wrong and I've done it right, so let me know if there's any questions or whatever...

The halos look good. Thanks for the write up (and photography lesson). Now, I've got to get around to fixing mine before March!

Inverters too? Or what's the matter with 'em? I installed mine in late February originally, and they were dead before the Spring Fest... so when I say "Finally", I mean it.

Great pics, man!!

Thanks! Still enjoying experimenting with it every day.

I'm diggin it. And the short "howto" on the camera.

You betcha.

You know Mike, you're OK for a guy that still lives at home!

Not "still", it's "again" - there's a huge difference! I swear there is...

JK. With a family like yours, I'd live there too!

Like we'd have you... Har har.

Great write up.

Thanks man.

[MR. J]

Looking good mike.

[BrilliantBlackHemi]

Very nice. What a great look on your car.

[LowGo]

Inverters too? Or what's the matter with 'em? I installed mine in late February originally, and they were dead before the Spring Fest... so when I say "Finally", I mean it.

Yup... I had 1 inverter die a few months ago. I also have problems with both of my LED strips, so I have to open up my lights to fix them. I have them both out, and the stock lights reinstalled (glad I did it that way!). Definitely got to get them fixed by March.

[MikeE]

that looks sic man

[oldschoolhemiguy]

Sweet Looking!! Can't wait until mine are finished

[300C-hris]

How exactly did you wire the halo? I have a switch like that has 3 connectors in back to wire your item. So I was guessing one is power neg then one goes to the halo for power up? Is that correct. And use the cig lighter for power source and use a nice ground point right?