Originally Posted by hardride
Hi all,
Came across this forum accidentally while researching building my own lights and am almost home. I already bought the optronics qh-7cc and a battery space battery (5ah 14.4v pre made water bottle battery). swapped out the bulbs in the qh-7cc's with a 20w and 35 mr-16's.
I want to run both lights with a switch that allows one on, both on, or the other on. Not sure what i need. Any ideas or help would be appreciated.
thanks
geo
ps
also need info on fusing. how large if both lights are on?
most likely will run the 20w solo most often.
I'm running almost the same setup as you describe. Dual Optronics housings with different wattage bulbs in each for different speeds/situations (probably overkill, but...) and a 7AH SLA battery (the chunky naked kind; I made a nice frame mount for it).
You shouldn't have any problem using a 10 amp fuse to protect your system. I've tested my system up to 50 watts with a 10 amp fuse and it draws less than three amps if I recall correctly. Make sure you put the fise as close to the battery in the circuit as possible to minimize the amount of unprotected wire. If you get a short between the battery and the fuse, you have no protection and your battery might go off like a car bomb or something.
I run two switches on the handlebars: one for power and one to toggle between the two beams. I don't have any way of running both lamps at once, which you mention wanting to do, but there are plenty of easy ways to do that.
Here's my wiring setup:
You could replace my two switches with two SPST switches and be able to turn on and off each beam individually to get whatever combination you like:
Keep us updated with your project and post a few pictures if you have the means. Good luck!