so i had 2 lights mounted to the shrock bumpre and 4 on the roof. i used them for about 5 minutes a while back and burned through the wires. i had a relay and a inline fuse for them. i am trying to rewire them and not have this happen again. any reasons why this happened and how i could prevent this would be greatly appreciated.

Use bigger gauge wire and wire 2 lights for one switch!!! Good luck!!!

Also check pos and neg to make sure they not crossed somewhere...

Look at the wattage of each light, and divide that by 12 (worst case for current). That will give you the approximate current each light draws. Add in a 25-50% safety factor and you'll have the safe current level for each light. This will allow you to choose a relay and fuse for each light, or a safe combination of lights (2 per circuit for example).

You can have one switch controlling a bunch of relays as the switching current is low, so that's not really a concern.

After you know your current for each circuit, find a calculator online which uses the current flowing in the circuit as well as the length of the circuit and it should result in a certain size wire (16AWG for example). Remember that current flows on the power and return wires, so the length will be the combined length for the two.

Thanks for all the tips! I ended up going with 12 gauge wire for all components and ran a 6 fuse, fuse block. i supplied power to that with 8 gauge wire. the front lights now work great. i left them on for about 15 minutes and i got no real increase in heat from the wires. im in the process of redoing my lightbar and lights. i decided to rhino line the bar and the lights. will post pics after its all done.