She cannah take tha' mooch pawr-r-r, Cahptain!

["Tony Sims" <simstony@domain.elided>]

Dear Ampy,
Following to a recent bout of stupidity, I had cause to re-wire the headlights
on my car.  Since the original configuration did not provide a relay for the
low beam circuit, I added one, of 40 amp capacity, and I replaced the original
high-beam relay with a new 40 amp one as well.  Again, since the original
configuration did not provide fuses for the high- or low-beam circuits, I
added a 20 amp fuse to each circuit upstream of the relays.  All the power
delivery wires from the battery to the relays and on to the high- and low-beam
headlights are 12 guage wire, and a dedicated ground circuit was created with
the same 12 guage wire.

Because I did not want auxiliary lamps, I chose to install bulbs of higher
than original wattage to provide improved illumination.  The main beam bulbs
are H4, 65w low/75w high.  The high-beam bulbs are H1, 100 watt.  Everything
seems to work swimmingly, and the system generates an impressive amount of
light.  It also consistently blows the high-beam circuit fuse after about 60
seconds.

I double checked the path of all my wires to make sure nothing is shorting,
and double checked all my connections to make sure they are correct.  It all
looks good.  None of the wires are getting hot, nor are the relays.

The answer would seem to be that I have far too much wattage (75+75+100+100 =
350) running through my high-beam circuit for a 20 amp fuse.  Not being of the
electrical-engineer persuasion, what I do not know is what to do next.  Could
I safely increase the capacity of the high-beam fuse to 25 or 30 amps?  Or
must I reduce the draw by installing lower-wattage bulbs?  I am assuming that
other than the fuse, my circuit is of great enough capacity, but as previously
stated, this isn't my area of expertise.

Dear Ampy, please help me!

Dimbulb
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