It's a 2014 STX with a towing package,, or has a hitch setup. Well I added a back up camera,, also added a single extra light 6 LED flood light from ECCO. Procured it from work. All hooked up to reverse light in back passenger side.

My question,, now have a second one was going to hook it up to driver side reverse light in back. Well tried that and the whole system stopped working.
Camera, the one light, and the normal reverse lights. Disconnect the second light from the back up tail light,, everything works fine. When connected there is no power to anything in back for normal reverse lights.

Is there something causing that to happen???

This is the light http://www.ebay.com/itm/331424667650?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
I have looked at the other stuff on subject. looks like I am using the trailer towing wire for the second light.

It is still the center wire on the 7 pin connector?? or is mine a 4 pin??
Haven't looked that closely!!!!


thanks marc

 

You are overloading the FET in the BCM and causing it to shut off.
- It thinks there is a short when the AMP draw is too high.

What do you have the lights connected to ?

The 2nd light early in the post is connected to the driver side reverse light in back and then later in the post it is connected to the trailer towing wire.

Please provide the color codes for the wires that you are connecting both light to.
- You really should not be using the truck's reverse lights for any Aux light install.

Not too sure what the "It is still the center wire on the 7 pin connector?? or is mine a 4 pin??" question is. 4 pin does not have reverse in it, so you should not be questioning that.

 

Any idea how much power your lights are consuming? Amperage? Or even wattage?

 

Did you wire straight to the trailer plug, or are you using a relay?

 

sorry about the confusion. both things where hooked up to the tail lights the reverse light. The blue/white stripe wire.

The first one is connected to the tail light passenger side,, along with camera.

The center plug in the 7 pin towing thing is what I was talking about after reading other post about aux back up lights.

I have not wired the second one yet. right now it is not operating. I am guessing I can use the back up lights for the trailer in the 7 pin plug to run the second light. Since i'd like it to be auto instead of manual.

After thinking about I have both the 4 and 7 pin things on the truck.

I planned on splicing into the towing plug wire.

I was also thinking that the amps where to much because it is a 5 amp fuse for the reverse lamps which is #40 on inside panel.

Hope this clarifies things more!!!!!!!

 

Ford really doesn't want you to modify your truck in any way do they. Don't have any spots for adding switches. Then they add a FET and BCM into the truck to act like a hall monitor telling you you're being a naughty boy

Have to be a Ford NERD just to add some aux lights to your truck. (joke nerd)

Maybe if they made the lights brighter,,oh wait that takes some thinking.

 

You are reading too much into the FET operation.
It acts like a circuit breaker ( as you found out ) that once the short or higher current draw is removed, it reverts back to operating normally.
- It is also a way to turn on and off higher current items, so it removes load from the MFS and changes it back to a switch not a current carrying switch that can have problems.

You need to remove the other backup lamp from the truck's reverse lamps. The wiring is not sufficient enough size to handle the load.
You will find that once the load is changed to the 7 pin trailer tow adapter that the lamp will be brighter.
- I did this testing on my 2001 and 2006.

The camera should be OK, but since you are splicing the 2 aux lamps to the 7 pin trailer tow adapter, you might as well change that over.

Adding aux lamps should not be done to the truck's wiring or lighting.
That is why the 7 pin trailer tow adapter is on there, with separate wiring and fuses. If something goes wrong with it, the truck's lighting is not affected. This is standard over all years of the F150.

 

Ok, this will be an easy fix. Get a 4-pin relay to start, a roll of 12ga wire, an add-a-fuse, and some spade connectors.

Run a hot wire from your battery (where you'll place the 30a fuse) to the back of the truck and into pin #30 on the relay.
Ground pin #85 to the chassis
Use the reverse wire from the trailer harness and connect that to pin #86.
Finally, connect your lights to pin #87

This will prevent overloading the factory trailer circuit and ensure the lights get proper voltage at all times.

 

Pardon me but what am I missing about the FET that doesn't fit what I said???? Its a control ford put on the truck to keep the consumer from doing something to the truck.
So there are two circuit breakers the 5 amp circuit plus the FET.

The idea of putting the two lights on the trailer towing 7 pin is fine. Have been running the way I have it for awhile as far as the one light and the camera. Have not had any problems with it.

I also thought that the idea behind LED'S was to cut down on the amount of power consumed and power needed to run lights??? They consume 1.1 amp,, 3 watts X6= 18 watts

The FET has something to do with the battery minding system that I assume is on my truck. Because there is no light or gauge to know what its doing.

 

If you want to ignore what I posted and use this terminology it would be :
FIFY

I have no idea where you are getting this count / config from.

No problems that you know of. Are the LEDs at full brightness ?
- If you say yes, how do you know ?

True, cut down on the amp draw. ( end of sentence ).
Not ; Cut down on amp draw so you can try to overload a factory circuit on the truck designed for a load without them.

The truck is designed to run what is on the truck. This is the reason the trailer tow adapter uses different circuits, as not to put the load on the truck's circuit and if something happens, it does not interfere with the truck's operation. ( remove it and the truck is still functioning as the day it left the factory ).

Not even close.
battery Minder circuit is something completely different.

 

There is a 5 amp fuse #40 in the cab for reverse lamps. You stated the FET is a circuit

breaker in number 7.

AS far as brightness I am not concerned with it,, while I have used it works just fine.

Well there are ALOT OF STUPID PEOPLE OUT THERE THEN. Then again it would have been nice for us STUPID PEOPLE to be told about this LITTLE tidbit of info about the FET or the BCM.

I did find out all this started back in 1999 or 2000 for the controlling of the stock wire stuff.

Thank you for informing me of the intention of the trailer towing plug. Other then using it for towing a trailer. Even thou from the other things ive read in the forum they don't put reverse lights on trailers much. To bad I am not as informed about such things. I seem to only use the four pin towing.

Hope this is not to confusing!!!!!! THANKS

 

Yes. That makes 1 fuse and the FET, which acts as 1 circuit breaker not 2 circuit breakers. It is only 2 items, not 4.
- You might want to stop DIY'ing your truck. It is only going to get more complex from your MY forward.

Ford did tell the world, in the service manual and the EVTM. They publish these for each model year so even the smallest change ( new or deleted connector ) is known.
Where should Ford be notifying of changes if not in the description and operations section of the service manual and in the EVTM ?
Another useful place is in the 2009 and newer sections on the forum here. I have covered the topic of the FET and CJB to SJB to BCM evolution.
- You don't want to get too brutal with using the FET to circuit protect. Even though the gate is touching 3 sides on each channel ( vs 1 on a transistor ) you can trash a FET if you get too carried away. That means new SJB / BCM ( MY dependent ) time.

Some trailers do have reverse lamps, and the other use is for Hydraulic Coupler on the trailer, if equiped.
- Kind of hard to back up a HC trailer if the brakes are applied the moment you back up.