How to power 220W worth of exterior lights?

[FirstEight]

I'm planning to mount 4 55W drive/fog lights on my roof rack, but not sure how I should wire power to them. I think the easiest way to get power on the roof would be to run a wire up through the top of the rear door and then run it along the roof rack rail to the front. So my question at this point is where can I safely draw that kind of power from the back of the car? There's the rear 12V plug inside, but I doubt it's designed for as much load as I want to pull off it. Any ideas?

[wukindada]

Welcome:)

Do you want the easiest or the nicest?

 

I'd say run the wiring through the interior of the rails & into the racks. Not an easy job but it would def have a finished look.

 

Do you do alot of night time offroading?

[FirstEight]

I'd thought about running through the interior of the rails. Never taken them off to see how feasible that would be, but I suppose I could look at the "vacation pix" for that.

 

I'm not too concerned about looks, but a small black wire attached to the back side of one of the rails shouldn't be too visible. Especially since the rails extend almost all the way to the rear door, the wire wouldn't be out in the open for long.

 

I don't do a lot of nighttime offroading, at most once a month, but I figure I can also use the lights to illuminate camp / base occasionally too.

[crash]

The ONLY way to power AUX lights is by running your own circuit. There's no existing wiring in the car that you can safely draw that much power from.

 

I'd use 12g wire and run a switch from the interior to a relay close to the battery (you can safely power your 12v switch from somthing like the fuse box). Then run the 12v from the relay to the lights, and ground them close to where you mount the lights.

 

I've got a temporary light pod that I put on my LegGT wagon when I go to the mountians (It replaces the stock grill). It's not pretty, but its VERY functional.

[Opie]

I'd also add an alternator off a 2007 STi, its 120A instead of 90A...

[FirstEight]

Good idea about the alternator. If I remember my electrical formulas correctly, 220W at 12V would mean an additional ~19amp load on the electrical system?

 

Something else I had thought of along these lines was supplimenting the electrical system with a deep-cycle battery in addition to the existing standard car battery. So that I could run things off the car's electical system (radio, lights, etc..) for prolonged periods of time without draining/damaging the main battery. I hadn't planned on getting to that project quite yet, but a bigger alternator would help me keep two batteries charged in that case.