I have them hooked up though a relay coming of the headlight switch so whenever the parking lights are on there on.. i may go back later and hook a switch to them tho.

as for a write up its pretty straight forward. I didn't take any install pics during the process because it was very humid out and i had to do a little at a time in between thunderstorms..


Here are the steps i used though...

1. pull down you headliner, does not have the come down the whole way just enough that you don't screw though it!

2. run painters tape across the roof about 6" wide so you have something to make markings on.

3. take the bottom gaskets from the lights off and lay them out how you would like the lights.

4. with a marker mark where you will need to drill the holes .. there will be 3 for each light. one for the wire and two for the mounting screws.

5. carefully drill all your holes

6. slowly and i stress SLOWLY peel up the painter tape, if you pull to fast and have some weak clear coat you will rip it up!

7.put the bottom gaskets back on the lights and put each one in place then put in all the screws.

8. run all your wiring and put back up your headliner.

 

here is an important piece of information that you left out, are the lights wired in series or in parallel??? (this is important for getting the lights to work correctly)

for those not as aware of electrical terminology:


lights in series: +12v---L1----L2----L3----L4----L5----grnd
lights in parallel: +12v----L1----grnd
................................|-L2--|
................................|-L3--|
................................|-L4--|
................................|-L5--|

 

yeah, parallel would be best for these. If they were wired in series the resistance from each bulb would lower the voltage and make them dim due to ohm's law (V=IR).

 

it depends on what type of bulbs you are using in them(and the voltage requirement of the bulbs), if you decide to run LEDs they only need around 3 volts, on the trucks 12v electrical system you can run 4 of them in parallel almost perfectly

 

The directions that came with the lights say to wire them in series starting with the light with the most distance from the power source. These lights ground though the front mounting screw so there is only one wire for power.

All automotive lighting is gonna be designed to run on a 12-14v system so really its not the volts you have to worry about What you have to worry about is the amps and watts that the bulbs pull. According to the manufactures website the bulbs in the kit pull 0.09 amps and are 1 watt each, so with a 5 light set you would have a total of 0.45 amps and 5 watts.

With that little of watts and amps wiring in series should work fine especially since i have LEDs on the way that run a lower amp/watts. Now, if i planned to run say a 200w bulb that would pull alot more amps than the current setup then i would have to run a separate power wire to each light.

 

Does that mean that each bulb has it's own separate ground to the chassis? If each bulb is grounding itself separately then I don't think you would be able to wire it in series without having a short. Do you have a wiring diagram?


You wouldn't have to run a separate wire with power to each bulb. You would still only need one wire to power them all, but instead of connecting the positive of the next bulb to the negative of the previous bulb (and so on) you'd just connect the positive from the previous bulb to the positive from the next bulb. And if each light grounds itself (which is what I believe you meant) then you would only need enough wire to get power to the first bulb from a 12v source and then wire to get from the first bulb to the second bulb, and from the second bulb to the third bulb, and so on.


You may be right about the voltage not being extremely important on some lighting, but depending on the bulb it won't work properly without the proper voltage. That's why flashlights get dimmer when the batteries are getting weak.

 

Yes, each light is grounded to the roof though the front mounting screw.


What is there to short out? Unless you touch the 12v supply with the roof.


Correct, at 1 watt each but, if you read it again i said "IF i planned to run say a 200w bulb that would pull alot more amps than the current setup then i would have to run a separate power wire to each light." as a example saying that it would most likely fail if i ran 1000w though one wire for a power source.

I never said in any way to wire them that way because that is how you would get you short.. you would be crossing the positive and the negative paths since the lights ground to the roof though the front screw.


That is exactly how i was saying to do it. Just use a butt connector to join the last light with the power source wire and use wire taps to join the rest of the lights on to the power wire.





All bulbs are designed for a certain voltage and if you do not supply that voltage to the bulb it will dim. the reason that the bulbs here don't dim is because you are on a automotive electrical system that is constantly (with the engine running) keeping a charge to the battery. As long as that lead power wire is feeding 12v+ you lights will stay bright because the system is recharging what the blubs are using.

Now, if you where to turn the truck off and leave the lights on then its a givin that the bulbs will start to dim after a bit because the electrical system is no longer replacing the lost voltage used (just like you flashlight).

 

After reading this I am pretty sure that you are getting series and parallel connections mixed up, which I was starting to get a hint of from your post before this most recent one.

The wiring diagram you posted is a parallel connection and not series. If you tried to wire them in series you would be shorting to the roof which was the point I was trying to make.

I never said that you should run 200watt lights off of 1 wire, I was saying you would still only need one wire for a parallel connection compared to a series connection (which wouldn't be possible for these lights) for these low power clearance lights.

Not trying to be cocky or anything, but trust me when I say that I do know what I'm talking about when it comes to how electricity works.

 

jeremy, you definitely have series and parallel mixed up, that_guy is right, the wiring diagram you posted up that you used is a parallel wiring scheme

 

I hope its ok but I used your photo on facebook to show friends and family how my wife wants her Durango to look. She said and I quote "Thats It!"