Noob aux lights battery question

[Jeepdoctor]

Hi

Zero electrical experience here but wanna give it a go. I'll be hooking up some Baja squadrons and maybe some XL's to the factory Mopar Aux switches. Lots of good advice here which has given me the confidence to go ahead with it myself so thanks in advance.

Question: Do you need to disconnect the battery before doing any of this work? Found a post by @FatBoy01 about how to disconnect but it mentioned a whole bunch of sparks from bolt and clicking from the fuses when reconnecting the ground wires which doesn't seem normal to me. I'd like to be as safe as possible given my lack of experience but don't want to mess up the electronics in the car either. Thanks!

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[Mark Elliott]

Always a good idea to disconnect the battery when doing that kind of work.

 

[Memphis Peej]

Watch some of ChrisFix videos on YouTube. He’s a car wiring master!

 

[melendez69]

It's not entirely required, but it's certainly a good idea and recommended, especially if you're skittish about it. I set up all my lighting without disconnecting the battery. You'll get differing opinions here, but if you're new to electricity, disconnect.

 

[Diesel550]

I hooked up AUX 1 and AUX 4 to some lighting. I didnt bother disconnecting the battery, I just made sure the power connection wire was the very last thing to do on the install.

 

[Jeepdoctor]

Thanks! With respect to the sparks when reconnecting the ground wires, is that normal? or to be expected?

 

[jlewissystem]

When i hooked my pods to AUX3, i didnt disconnect anything....although, in the past i would. It didnt matter this time. No spark. Should be safe, even though not a "best practice". They make it so easy: connect to whichever power, then ground and done!

 

[seanjonesSUPERTRAMP]

@jlewissystem is it okay to ground more than 1 item to the same bolt or is that a no-no?

 

[jlewissystem]

@jlewissystem is it okay to ground more than 1 item to the same bolt or is that a no-no?

From my experience: should be good. In the past, i have also used a "fuse block", where i routed multiple switches (grounds) into the block, then to the same ground.

 

[GeoTracker]

Thanks! With respect to the sparks when reconnecting the ground wires, is that normal? or to be expected?

You shouldn't be arcing (seeing sparks) when connecting to ground. That suggests to me that the wire you're connecting is live and thus creating the sparks. It could be the system has power in it (turn off a switch of what you're installing) or it's wired wrong and more diagnosis needs to happen. Hope that helps.

 

[mwilk012]

It’s really not necessary for the aux switches, just make sure they’re not on.

 

[Ldybug]

I just wired my cb radio to factory aux 3 without unhooking the battery. No sparks. I did a bunch of research before doing it. Jeep was off, aux 3 was off. I think it's fine. I made sure not to let any wires touch metal or eachother.

Note: we have two batteries in the JLs. One main battery and one small battery for the ESS. Even if you disconnect the red and black terminals of the main battery, the ESS battery still sends juice through the electrical system. I found this out the FUN way when I wired my winch and saw 4th of July sparks under the hood. That could have ended badly, but luckily it did not. There's another thread on here you may have seen that talks about possible methods of killing all power. I think the jury is still out on how to do this though. The thread is called something like "killing 12v power"

 

[InspiredEngineering]

We recommend to disconnect all power sources when installing something electrical.

 

[Ldybug]

We recommend to disconnect all power sources when installing something electrical.

So, disconnect the main battery, remove the battery, then disconnect the secondary battery??? Edit: because you can't access the secondary battery unless you completely remove the main battery.

 

[Martindfletcher]

I soldered mine with batterty connected if the switches are off they shouldn’t be live,

Hell I have soldered live wires with battery on, and and only blown one fuse it was because i dropped the uncovered hot wire onto a grounded frame prior to wrapping it.

Worst case If you can change a fuse there isn’t much to worry about.

Having said all that I still agree it’s best to disconnect the battery when doing electrical work.

But would I bother for aux lights no.

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