Relay ground

[ToyTundra 10+ year member]

So i've been using relays for a while and now i'm goint o rewire my driving lights (hellas) to accept 100W bulbs. My question is: how big does the relay's ground need to be? In the past i've used the same size as the positive wire (16awg), but i'm goin to be running 10-12awg to the lights. It seems like i could still use 16awg because the realy doesn't draw matching current, it just need somthing to flip the relay. Any thoughts? I already search a bit

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[JimJ 5,000+ posts]

Just use 12awg if you're really concerned about it. The ground lead shouldn't be that long anyway...

 

[KaeZoo 10+ year member]

Are you talking about the ground side of the coil (terminal 85 or 86)? You don't even need 16 gauge for that; 22 gauge would do just fine. A Bosch relay coil draws less than 200 milliamps. Use any wire that's handy.

 

[ToyTundra 10+ year member]

Are you talking about the ground side of the coil (terminal 85 or 86)? You don't even need 16 gauge for that; 22 gauge would do just fine. A Bosch relay coil draws less than 200 milliamps. Use any wire that's handy.

yeah the ground side of the coil 85.

200 mA was the number i was looking for. thanks //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif