Even after replacing my headlights they are still not very bright unless I use the high beams.

Has anybody replaced with newer style bulbs and where can you purchase them that are direct replacements?

Any suggestions on how to brighten up my world?

I had the same problem, tried brighter bulbs, etc. to no avail. The guys @ Beaver Sales in Bend put some type of booster to inc. the voltage to the lights which solved the problem. Henry

I believe there are some posts on this forum dealing with the dim headlight issue.  If I remember this has something to due with the size of the wire and length of the run from the batteries.  

The issue is that the headlight wiring passes thru the Smart Wheel . Use this link to add relays ,high/low beams ,to the existing circuit and your headlights will be amazingly bright.
http://www.danielsternlighting.com/home.html

I do not have the smart wheel on my coach.....

Just a standard headlight switch. But thanks anyway

Quoted from Jeremy Parrett

The issue is that the headlight wiring passes thru the Smart Wheel . Use this link to add a solenoid to the existing circuit and your headlights will be amazingly bright.
http://www.danielsternlighting.com/home.html

I hope you're kidding!  I can't believe the wiring that actually lights the headlights goes through the Smart Wheel.  Headlights should be powered through a high current relay...not through a headlight switch.  I try not to drive at night, so I don't know how bright mine are.  I will check though for a relay.

Gil
08 Contessa

Will be interested to hear what you find Gil, as I am also 2008 Contessa.

Tom:
98 Contessa, same dim headlights.  Mine were a "sealed beam" standard size, so any auto parts store has the halogen bulbs in the standard size replacement lamp.  $75 did the pair, at my local Lordco Parts. Much brighter.

Be careful there, Keith.  Halogens draw significantly more current through wiring designed for lesser lamps.  I burned up a headlight switch on my old coach doing just what you did.

As Gil mentioned, a relay is best, and most are so constructed.  But you may need to replace the relay-to-lamp wires, relay-to-fuse wires, and perhaps more to get the proper sized wires and fuses to handle halogens.  You could be driving along one night and be suddenly plunged into darkness as a component fries on you.

Seems there was discussion on this in the past where someone supplied a link to a fellow's website where he sells kits for resolving the issue, and many commented that it did the job.  Can anyone on the Forum supply the link again for Tom?

-Joel

Thanks Joel I searched for a link but did not find it before I posted.

I also tried halogen with not much success just a hair brighter.

Has anyone had Beaver Sales in Bend do their headlight circuit modification?  I am planning on having mine done next week and was wondering what results anyone has had.  It is my understanding that they will replace the two relays with one and the voltage at the headlights will be 12.0 volts.

Thanks

Found it!  Problem is, while the boss is on vacation for the next month the website is of little use.

http://www.danielsternlighting.com/products/products.html

-Joel

This older link may be a little more help http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/relays/relays.html. It provides a reasonable explanation. You might want to try to reach out to Roy Mueller he has corrected the issue on several coaches including ours.
Good luck

Lester, As stated in post # 1 on this page, I have had the guys at Beaver Sales install relays in my coach.  Henry

Quoted from keithc290

This older link may be a little more help http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/relays/relays.html. It provides a reasonable explanation. You might want to try to reach out to Roy Mueller he has corrected the issue on several coaches including ours.
Good luck

The data in this link is pretty good.  As you can see, this is not a hard modification for anyone with elementary electrical skills to accomplish.  The only thing I would say is, that you do not and should not connect directly to the alternator.  The high current feed to the relays should go to the battery.  Given that most of our coaches may have the main DC distribution panel near the front of their coach, I would recommend connecting to the main DC feed for the relays to the DC distribution panel.  This is where the fuse, or better yet resettable circuit breaker, would also be installed.

It still boggles my mind to think anyone installed headlamps directly powered from a switch.  Headlight relays have been in used for many decades in the automotive industry.

Gil
08 Contessa

You can wire two relays (one for low beam and one for high beam) into the headlight system in the left front electrical bay without running new wiring to the headlights or battery. There is very adequate wiring to the 12V positive buss in the bay and the wiring to the headlights is adequate. So you just use the factory wiring from the headlight switch as a trigger for the relay and the 12V buss as the power source that the relay will supply to the headlights when it receives the trigger current from the switch. It would probably be a good idea to use an automatic resetting circuit breaker or at least a fuse in the new power wire.

At least that is the way to repair the SMC built Beavers, I have not worked on a Monaco built Beaver for this problem yet.

Gerald

Jay Todd did the Daniel Stern conversion to his 2002 Thunder. Day and night difference big time!!!  Marty

Quoted from Joel Ashley

Found it!  Problem is, while the boss is on vacation for the next month the website is of little use.

http://www.danielsternlighting.com/products/products.html

-Joel

Sorry Jeremy.  I must have been reading this thread the day after getting no sleep for 36 hours.  Totally missed that you'd already given essentially that same link in a prior post  .

Thanks, Keith, for the cached site info.

-Groggy Joel

Hi Joel,
  no worries mate !!  I was going to replace the headlight wiring as well as installing the relays. Thanks to Gerald I dont need to do that now.
I have 3 concerns 1) what relays would be sufficient for this curcuit.
                           2) Will the driving lights benefit from a relay in the circuit.
                           3) After 11 years of driving without relays should I replace the headlight switch  .

Jeremy,
Any good 30 to 40 amp 12V automotive relay will be sufficient. I use 4 or 5 pin (usually called Bosch style) relays that can be purchased on the net for less than $5 each (in quantities for less than $2) with the connector harness included.

Since the driving lights do not go through as much circuitry as the headlights do, they will not benefit from relays near as much as the headlights will. So I would not go through the trouble of wiring relays into the driving lights. However I only use the driving lights as daytime driving lights and do not depend on them as a light source to drive by.

As for replacing the headlight switch, if it is not giving you any trouble now, I would not replace it because it will be carrying a lot less current after you install the relays and therefore it will have a lot longer life expectancy.

Gerald

Jeramy, Gerald,

Activation of any of the "wipers on function" for the Smart Wheel activates the headlights and they cannot be turned off unless you turn on and then turn off the headlight switch or you turn off the ignition. That would say to me that there is a relay circuit involved here already with the Smartwheel. I'm not sure if the headlight switch is actually providing the current for the headlights or is just a trigger for the Smart Wheel circuits.

From the improved intensity results that folks have gotten with the added relays I'm sure something is not quite right. Anyone figuired out how the Smart Wheel is involved here and if a heavier wire supply to the Smart Wheel or a relay that they use might be involved?

If the headlight switch is supplying current, it is clear that Smart Wheel wiper activation is an additional current supply given the headlights will work with the headlight switch off. Has anyone tried turning the headlights on at night and then activating the wipers for a cycle to see if the added current source increases the brightness without adding relays and extra wiring and may just be good enough?

Later Ed

Ed et al,

Using the relays and connectors supplied by Daniel Stern will eliminate any voltage loss in the headlight circuit - both high and low beam. The voltage loss can be caused by many things depending on the setup in your particular coach. In my case, the wires from the DC bus to the headlights was just 22ga, far too small to carry the load. In addition, there was some extra resistance in the switch circuit which just made the problem worse. In my initial testing, I was getting just barely over 5 volts at the lamps giving me about 15% of the lumens normally obtained with 12 volts.

The relays are designed to be triggered by the wiring already being used by your headlights and a substantially reduced voltage - as in my case - is still more than enough to trigger the relays. Both the headlight switch and any trigger relay that might be coming from a system in the smartwheel (icc headlight flasher or windshield wiper trigger) will be upstream of the lamps and so will still trigger the voltage relay for the lamps.

The ideal with this system is to have an uninterrupted wire run from the batteries to the relays and use 10 ga wire. That wire run can be made direct from the DC bus in the electrical bay as Gerald said but I would personally do a battery to bus test to see if there is any voltage loss between battery and bus before I used that as my source. In my case, I made the wire run direct from the batteries.

The relays themselves can be obtained from any auto parts store at a very reasonable price as Gerald said however there is a but ...

You should be running that 10 ga wire not only to the relays, but from the relay output to the lamp itself. The female jack that plugs into the back of the lamp is not large enough to accept a wire of that size and very few auto part stores will have a replacement that takes larger wires. That is the beauty of the Daniel Stern kit. He supplies not only the relays and a mount block, but he also supplies the appropriate new jack for the rear of the lamps that accepts 10ga wire. In addition, his kit has a male receiver that will plug into your existing jack for the headlights that runs directly to the relay trigger. You aren't cutting any wires on your coach or anything else. You are just adding the heavier wires for the relays and between the relays and the new jack for the headlights. Then just unplug your current headlight jack, plug it into the relay trigger plug and then plug the new jack into the headlights. Instant light!!!

Any other relays that may have been placed in the circuit to trigger your headlights on will still function as they are all upstream of the lamp plug that is now being used to trigger your new voltage relays.

Jay,

Thanks for the info. No doubt using a relay and bi-passing all the current coach wiring will solve the problem.

I was trying to see how the existing harness worked and where the problem is.  It turns out that the headlight switch (if wired per the Smart Wheel Schematic) carries almost no current. That is a trigger for the Smart Wheel control circuit.  Within the Smart Wheel Controller, there are two 25 amp relays that are fed from a connector plug that has a 12V source feed, and then a connector with a wire feed out to the headlamps.  I'm not sure if most of the voltage drop is in the wire feed for the Smart Wheel Controller, the internal relay circuit, or the wiring out to the lights, or all of the above.  It may be that a separate relay circuit is the only way to overcome all this, if the voltage drop is distributed over a lot of wiring and sources. It could also be that a lot of the voltage drop may be able to be alleviated with a simpler change.  I'm on the road so I'm not sure I will get to this until I get home, but it looks like a good problem to check out and see what the options are.

I have not found where the Smart Wheel unit is mounted, to try and sort this out.  I always thought it was down in the electrical bay under the driver seat, but with a quick check it was not to be found there...Maybe Gerald has scouted this unit out before?  My guess is maybe the side console?

Later Ed

Since Daniel is off for a while, does anyone have an idea what his kit costs.  I tried the web-page, but the products section just says that he will be gone for a while.  Also, does anyone know how the Stern kit compares to what Beaver Coach Sales does on their mods.  Thread says the it solved the problem of lack of headlight power.

My Smart wheel controller is in the electrical bay on the right wall near the bottom.

I am scheduled to have Beaver do it Monday, but just want to make sure I am doing the right thing, and what is best.

Thanks

Ed,
Your Smart Wheel control module should be under the electrical control panel to the left of the driver's seat.

Gerald

Thanks Gerald, I will check that panel out. It is one places in my coach that I have not explored yet.

I'm leaving the Olympic Peninsula in the morning and will travel through Oregon to Napa CA to visit a relative so we will be busy on the road for a few days...may get to look at this in Napa if I get bored and have not consumed too much wine.

Les, I am sure that Beaver Coach Sales will have the ability to solve this and will probably wire in a couple of relays like what has been discussed. They do good work there, but as always I would ask what they plan on doing, and then inspect the work when they are done. Unless you live there, it is usually a long way to travel if you have to go back for some reason. This is a very solvable problem with relays and heavier gauge wiring. It may be good to ask them what the voltage is at the chassis battery bank, also the voltage at the low beam socket wire with the lights on before the modification and after to see what you have gained. There will always be some voltage drop so do not expect to see the battery voltage at the socket but it should be clear that the fix made a substantial improvement.

I'm going to try and sort out where the voltage drops are taking place and see if a simpler wiring change might alleviate most of this problem...maybe a 50/50 chance. I'll post what I learn when I get to it.

Later Ed

Ed

Thanks for your input.  I will do as you suggested.  I am staying overnight so I will be able to see the difference as well as have them provide the voltage differences.

Thanks

Les,

I paid $59.00 for the kit from Stern. I had to purchase my own wire and I also put the wire inside flexable wire conduit. Total cost for me was about $150.00 and it took me about 4 hours to install.

Thanks for info.  

Beaver told me about $200, but I don't think that they change out the wiring.

Good question to ask Loren, Patty, or other service advisor first thing tomorrow morning (about the wiring changeout), Les.  But I know BCS wouldn't do anything unsafe or ill-advised.

Sounds to me like the $50 difference 'tween BCS and Jay's fix is a bargain to save 4 hours of your labor, and to get it done tomorrow and off your mind.

-Joel



  

Les,
Please post your findings. I'd like to do this upgrade to my '99 PT as it has been a pet peeve since the 1st night I drove our coach.
Jim

Joel  

I agree.  I will see what happens tomorrow when I talk to them.  I will post the answer for others.

Good news, my 2008 has a headlight relay.

Gil
08 Contessa