I'm waiting on an FAL 295 kit (should fit my 03 Ex). I called FAL and asked them some questions, including the wiring of indicator lights. They said that at this time, FAL does not recommend indicator lights. I asked how might I know if they are on, and they said they can't answer that.

I've been search the site for efan info but didn't find anything How-to ish for installing lights. I had previously enquired about LED's but I think that is beyond me. Then someone mentioned just getting regular lights that are rated high enough amps. I did find those in PepBoys, but I am uncertain of the best way to wire them.

I was thinking of taping into the ground side of each fan (1 light per fan of course), running up to the light, then to a ground under the dash somewhere.

Just not sure about how that will work. FAL said the controller is activated by a negative signal. If I hang a small light on the downstream side of the fan's power, is that likely to bother the controller?

Wondering the same thing about auxiliary switches. I was going to wire two switches completely independent of the controller so in the event of a burn out I could turn either one or both on manually. I was just going to wire the swithces directly to the hot side of the fan to a fuse to the battery to the switch. Any thoughts on these two are appreciated.

 

LEDs aren't that hard to set up, you need to do a little soldering and wire a resistor in there, in series - if you buy bare LEDS the place where you get them ought to be able to tell you what sort of resistor you need...

These days you can often get readymade pilots that may or may not be led, the other option if you don't mind messing with the dash is to use an unused pilot light position in the dashboard, unless your truck is really optioned up, there will be a spot or two not used - sometimes there's even a bulb there, you'd just need to solder to the pcb on the back of the instrument cluster.

If that's too complex, just get one of those pilot light clusters that sits under the bottom edge of the dash - as for 'negative current or whatever' just find the positive side of the line where power goes to the fan - a tester light will help - one lead goes to the terminal on the fan, the other to ground - when the bulb lights, you 've found the positive terminal.

A bypass switch isn't a bad idea, but I actually think you can improve on this by using relays to make the fan fail-safe, so the fan's default is to remain ON, rather than off, so if the controller fails, the fans stay on - better that than overheating, and that's how most car manufacturers set efans up...

If you tap into the pos or hot side of the fans for the pilots, aperage isn't a problem - if you ground the other side, you're running in parallel so the fan current draw is not a problem - don't wire them in series or the bulbs will be acting as fuses.

Consider also, wiring relay control so the fans run constantly when your a/c is on, again, this is how manufacturers do it, and you'll get better cooling that way, allowing you to use the lower ac setting more, thereby saving gas.

 

Radio Shack had a LED light that already had a resistor in place. All I did was extended the leads from the light all way to the fan and tapped into the + and - wires right from fan motor. Current running through the fan will provide current through the light. Only downside is at highway speeds the fan freely rotate with the wind flow, causing a small current to be created which can dimly light up the lights. No harm done so it's only a downside if it bothers ya.

The lights are tiny... I just drilled a small hole down low in the dash to thread the lights into. Simple and easy.

 

Do you know off hand how many ohms the resister was? Also, how did you "tap" into the leads at the fan motor - stip the insulation and solder, piggy back connector etc?

Thanks for that suggestion. Dim light doesn't bother me!

 

The argument I have made previously was that you are not monitoring to see if the fan is working, but you are monitoring to see if the fan has power with a light from the power supply to the fan.
Bluegrass gave a pretty good description of what would be required for a true monitor. See his post - # 28 in this thread.

https://www.f150online.com/forums/sh...=237625&page=2

 

Hello, I think there is confusion between trying to monitor an electrical function and the actual mechanical function of the fan running.
An electrical voltage monitor doesn't tell if the fan is actually rotating.
If the fan bearings or some other fault prevent it from runing full speed the voltage electical monitor can't tell you this.
The only practical way to see the fan running is a sensor to sense the air pressure the fan generates or a rotating sensor as a seperate monitor not connected to the fan circuit directly.
There are two ways to look at the fan circuit.
One is the voltage at the last point before the fan and second, to sample motor current draw.
The sample current will tell you if the circuit goes open and the fan will not run.
That's the closest you can get without using an air pressure or rotating sensor of some sort.
Then you have the minor problem of telling the difference between airflow from the fan and that of running down the road from air entering on it's own and rotating the fan.
If I were bent on the best and easiest way to do this, I might use the current sensing method and a mechinical coolant temp gage in combination.
Either one tells you when there is a problem depending on how fast you see it while driving.
A current sensing circuit is done by measuring a very small voltage drop accross a very low value series resistance. This small drop is from the current flow in the circuit. No current, no voltage drop accoss the sensing resistance, no fan operation.
On a seconday basis, if the fan were to bind up in rotation, the current increases and you would see this also if a meter type readout is used. So a normal run is used as a reference. Anything above or below is a fault. Also you would see a hi reading at startup because the motor uses almost two times the running current to get it'self up to speed then falls back to it's running current. The sensing resistence would tend to give the fan a soft start by limiting current somewhat.
If you want to go this route; some calculations are in order to pick the meter scale to use, the value of the sensing resistance and it's heat dissapation rating.
BTW, almost all non electronic heater fan controls use this method of controlling speed and would only need the addition of a correct gage accross the dropping resistor to be the same type circuit. Only difference is you can hear/feel the fan at it's different speeds inside the cab and don't need any type of monitor.
Another way is the use of a solid state controller at some expense but it ends up with about the same issue of still knowing if the fan is running.

Additionally, the PCM that controls the engine and trans does all the same monitoring of voltage and current plus the ability to sense current wave form signitures that are interpeted in the hardware/software and compaired to a table to determine if the result is a fault or not.
I cannnot discribe all this in any simpler terms so good luck with what you decide to do.

 

Thanks so much for the great input. I just got the fans in the mail yesterday. I have a buddy who is an electrical engineer (he has equipment on the Space station ). Anyhow I will share these ideas with him.

I think though that the LED idea may be sufficient for what I want. There is a limit to what I can do time-wise, else I will be kilt.

As long as the LED's wont burn out, that may be the way to go with me.