I just bought an electric fan and made a relay for it but i dont know where i should plug some stuff in. I made the relay with a lead from the battery and also i made it so it can hook up to an ignition switch because i saw this was what most the relay kits were doing. my question is where should i connect the ignition hookup to? is somewhere on the solenoid a good spot? for now i have the ignition hookup on the battery so it runs even when i shut my car off until it gets cool enough. i need a spot that will shut off when the cars off.

 

If you have a standard heater, the power lead to the fan motor is a perfect choice for you. Too late now, but this it partly why I use thermal clutch fans- way easier to install, less stuff to go wrong.

 

I got lucky and found an unused connector on the harness. It gave me 12v with the ignition on. I thought about tapping off the positive side of the coil too. You are only powering a relay so the draw is minute. I would look for something under the hood and if that fails, run a dedicated wire back to the ignition. Going off the solenoid won't work since that only gets power when cranking. I would however run my fan positive to the battery side of the solenoid. I think it looks better and gets the wire out of the way.

 

My car is heater-less and now I think in fact that's the unused tap I am using. So I too think that would be a good place to take power for the relay.

 

ok the power lead on the fan is in the engine bay correct? i think i know what your talking about now and i may just have enough wire to make it there.

im in long island for the weekend, 100 miles from home in new jersey. so i need to get the fan running correctly before i got the long drive home.

i originally had it wired to the battery side of the solenoid so i guess i can just put it back there easily

 

ok heater lead wont work for me
for now i got it on the positive side of the coil but i cant leave it there and i need a long term solution

 

double post

 

What is wrong with where it is? When you turn the car off the fan will stay on and cool the water in the rad. If your battery is good it shouldnt matter. That was the reason I bought an electric fan, now I just need an electric water pump to go with it.

 

don't see why coil+ is a bad idea.
a relay switches high power. it's basically a switch that turns once it gets a signal. So when you have the signal hooked to coil+ then this is when it runs. as soon as you switch on ignition.
Don't worry about lots of power sucked from coil. the fan gets its power from the battery as you have it hooked there. So if its wired correctly you should be fine.

The relay has a post for battery+ and switches that through to the fan once you get + on the trigger.

hope I'm making sense here.
Fan directly hooked top coil->bad
the constant+ of relay hooked to coil->bad
the trigger for the relay to engage hooked to coil+ -> don't see a problem

 

The coil will work for now but I would be worried about the power that is being used to run the relay and not gong to the coil. That coil power is not 12vdc anyway because it goes through the resistor wire. These factors could create problems. Why won't the heater wire work? For temporary I would leave it hooked up to the solenoid. I like that better than the coil.