DEPO Lights with a Slee Harness (1 Viewer)

[thedoughboy]

OK. The relays arrived yesterday and I had some time to install everything today. I will give my review in another post. This is a pretty easy mod to the Slee Harness. It's cheap too. Most everything is available on Amazon or Ebay. If you have Depo lights and are not taking advantage of the dual filament H4 bulb I highly recommend this. The amount of light from the highs is really spectacular.


Parts List:

• Connectors for the H4 bulbs.
• Connectors for the H1 bulbs. I used H4 connectors and cut off the third wire.
• Two feet of each color: blue/black/yellow/white/red (14 gauge) wire.
• 2 feet of shrink wrap.
• Wind proof lighter to shrink the shrink wrap.
• Soldering supplies.
• 2 SPDT Bosch style relays. They look like these:
  
  
  

 

[thedoughboy]

1. Separate the wires from the relay. This will allow you to select which color wire is soldered to the wires on the Slee Harness.

I chose this. I'm sure there is some standard protocol but I was done researching. I wanted to get this installed .

Another schematic of the same relay. This one shows you how the relay will be hooked up regardless of (relay) wire color:

2. Disconnect the negative at the battery. Secure connector so it does not inadvertently contact the negative post.

 

[thedoughboy]

3. Cut off the 9005/9006 connectors. Strip 1/4-3/8 inch of insulation off every wire.

 

[thedoughboy]

4. The pictures above are for the 9005 High Bulb.

• The blue wire is the positive wire for the high beams. The black is the ground.
  
• The black will be soldered to the ground wire for the H1 bulb. Solder and shrink wrap it (or electrical tape).
  
• The blue wire will be soldered to two wires: the positive H1 bulb and the white trigger wire.
• Shrink wrap this connection and feed the white trigger wire back to the relay location.

This picture shows:

• the black grounds connected and shrink wrapped.
• the blue 9005 high connected to my (red) positive H1 bulb and the white trigger wire.

Same connection with shrink wrap.

 

[thedoughboy]

5. Connect the Slee 9006 low beam wire to the H4 connector. Cut off the 9006 connector and strip the wire insulation for soldering. I did not take a good picture of this. It looks similar to the Slee 9005 high beam connection. However, the positive wire is yellow with the ground being black.

The H4 connector will have three wires associated with it; ground, low beam filament and high beam filament. Here is the pinout for the H4 bulb:

The pinout for the H4 connector:

Connect/solder/wrap the following on the H4 bulb connector.

• H4 ground to the black wire of Slee 9006 (low) harness.
• H4 low to the yellow wire of the relay.
• H4 high to the blue wire of the relay.
• Connect the yellow positive wire from the Slee harness to the red wire from the relay.

Here is a picture of my H4 ready to install:

****************************************
Reinstall the relay wires to the relay.
Install the H4 bulb and weather guard.

 

[thedoughboy]

6. Mount the relay for the passenger side lights. My truck has two threaded grounding points near the windshield washer reservoir. The top was occupied by my grounds. The bottom location was open. I moved my grounds to the bottom and placed the relay in the top location. I thought this was better for moisture purposes. It also provided ample room for the wires to hang below the relay.

I tested the bulbs before installing everything. Here is a picture of the H4 filaments. I wore some dark sunglasses and verified the correct filament was charged. I tested both low and high beams. The relay worked!

Here is a picture of the (passenger side) relay location. I still need to zip tie a few things but the location (for the relay) works. Reinstall the radiator overflow and begin the driver's side.

 

[thedoughboy]

7. Repeat this process for the driver's side. I mounted the relay near the Slee Harness relays. Here is a picture for the driver's side. I pulled my battery to make things easier. The new relay is the one on the bottom right.

 

[thedoughboy]

8. Reinstall everything. Zip tie what you want to and enjoy the light!

That's it. I test drove it tonight. Wow, the high beams throw a LOT of light. They were bright before, but this is an improvement. After I have a few evenings to drive and adjust them I'll report back.

 

[SUMMIT CRUISERS]

Thanks Doughboy, awesome write-up! My son and I will be doing the same very shortly. Thanks again for the well documented information.

 

[iou180]

Hey that's a great idea. Now all I need is a set of Depo lights, a Slee harness and some bulbs.

? Could you run both sides from just one relay?

 

[thedoughboy]

Hey that's a great idea. Now all I need is a set of Depo lights, a Slee harness and some bulbs.

? Could you run both sides from just one relay?

I'd need to think about that for a few seconds. It would probably require a more aggressive mod to the Slee Harness. This was pretty easy.

I need to give @Timpanogos Slim a shout out! He gave me the idea to use this set-up. This seems the easiest as the existing 9006 low beam is used to control the two filaments of the H4 bulb.

 

[Timpanogos Slim]

You could run both sides from one relay but you'll need more wire, and the cost savings won't be much, and i wouldn't do it if there were a possibility of using the (not street legal) H4 bulbs with a 100w high beam. Because 200w at 14v is far closer to the 30A rating than i want to be.

 

[warezdog]

Now I have to check my H4 bulbs that came in the eagle eyes to see if they are dual filament

 

[Timpanogos Slim]

Afaik H4 is always dual filament

 

[FJRanger]

This is outstanding, well done! @thedoughboy thanks for working through this and thanks to @Timpanogos Slim for the idea to run the H4 off low beam. As soon as I'm finished converting to 12v start I'll be doing the same thing.

@thedoughboy do you have any performance pictures yet?

 

[wearsabrowncoat]

Nice work. I will probably follow suit once I find a deal on a LC grill and trim so I can make the depots work on my LX.

 

[FJRanger]

Okay, I'm finally getting to this and have gathered all the parts you've listed. I was able to get a new, unused harness from another forum member allowing me to complete the wiring while the harness is out of the 80.

One of the parts I'm still trying to understand is the extra wire. Where do I use the "Two feet of each color:... (14 gauge) wire?" Is it one foot per side, or two feet on the driver or passenger, or two feet on both?

Please clarify? Thanks.

 

[FJRanger]

4. The pictures above are for the 9005 High Bulb.

• The blue wire is the positive wire for the high beams. The black is the ground.
  
• The black will be soldered to the ground wire for the H1 bulb. Solder and shrink wrap it (or electrical tape).
  
• The blue wire will be soldered to two wires: the positive H1 bulb and the white trigger wire.
• Shrink wrap this connection and feed the white trigger wire back to the relay location.

This picture shows:

• the black grounds connected and shrink wrapped.
• the blue 9005 high connected to my (red) positive H1 bulb and the white trigger wire.

View attachment 1002192

Re-read this section and it lead to another question. The part "my (red) positive H1 bulb" did you splice in a red wire on the H1 connector?

 

[thedoughboy]

One of the parts I'm still trying to understand is the extra wire. Where do I use the "Two feet of each color:... (14 gauge) wire?" Is it one foot per side, or two feet on the driver or passenger, or two feet on both?

Please clarify? Thanks.

You use the extra wire to extend the wires coming off the relay you buy. The relays I bought had about 6 inches of said wire. I needed to extend them to approximately 18 inches. I used about 1 foot per side.

Re-read this section and it lead to another question. The part "my (red) positive H1 bulb" did you splice in a red wire on the H1 connector?

Yes, the positive wire for my H1 bulbs is red.

 

[Dragos80]

Is it a bad idea to connect the H4 High to H1 by a single wire?
Meaning, when the high beams are on the H1 would feed the high filament on H4.