Car Wiring - Adding lights

[rawfuls]

I know finding somebody on this board with knowledge of my exact car is going to be a difficult, so let's generalize.

My goal is to use some of HobbyKing's LED strips:
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...idProduct=8944

and have them light up whenever the doors open.

I'd be mounting them under the passenger glovebox, and under the front seats to provide ambient lighting.
And if I want, I'll probably use blue LEDs to make it look like a spaceshuttle!

In any case, I don't want this to be a HUGE mod, but rather something that is easily reversible.
Could I tape into the fuse box, and use a fuse, and if so- how?
Anybody know if there's a fuse for this lighting, where it turns off when doors are closed & on when doors are open?

I'm also going to be installing some of these into the trunk cargo area, but on a switch.
Is there anything special to this, or is it just a simple SPST switch wiring...?
Assuming it is, but since it IS a car, I'd never know.
(Going to be using the rear cigarette socket)

[BrianG]

Assuming the LEDs have the proper resistors/circuit built-in, the biggest problem will be wiring them to the door switches. Some cars have this switch as "switched ground", others switch the hot - a visual inspection of the switch's wiring scheme or a meter will be able to tell you what's what. For the switched ground type, simply wire 12v to the + lead of your LED circuit and attach the ground of the LED circuit to the door pin switch.

For the trunk, you could add a pin switch that will do the same as the doors. Or, attach a mercury switch so that it closes when you open the trunk. Or, just a simple manual switch works too.

If accessing the door switches is difficult, just find the right wire in the kick panels. Look up your car's year, make, model somewhere that has car wiring diagrams for auto security installations. A quick google search came up with this: http://www.bulldogsecurity.com/bdnew...ngdiagrams.asp

Also, http://www.the12volt.com/ has pretty good resources and diagrams to help you out.

[rawfuls]

A taad bit confused, need to start looking more into electrical systems.
Anywhoo, here is the bulldogsecurity page:
http://www.bulldogsecurity.com/diagr...4424&MakeID=26
and 'the12volt' (this is a 2000 Sportage, I'm a 2001 Sportage, but they appear to be the same).
http://www.the12volt.com/installbay/...tail/1249.html

In both cases it appears that they are switching the negative (yellow/green[-])

Where would I find the 12v lead and the ground to the door pin?

In other words, I'm tapping directly into the door switch (that black knobby thing, that pushes in/out for door)?

[BrianG]

Yeah, that's a "switched ground" setup and is pretty typical. Since the LED strips aren't drawing much current, you should be able to get away with using the door switch as the ground without any added components. So, it would go like this:

+12v from the vehicle wired to the LED's positive input

Wire the LED's negative input to the yellow/green wire.

That's it.

The confusion probably stems from the fact that almost every circuit you see has the switch between the positive supply and the load. But really, it doesn't matter where the switch goes in most circuits as long as the circuit it broken.

EDIT: Even though both of those diagrams say the wire is yellow/green, I would check to make sure! Simply attach a meter's ground probe to that wire, and the meter's red probe to a 12v source. If that wire is correct, the meter should show 12v when the door is open and 0v when it is closed.

[rawfuls]

I see...

So, where would I probably find the nearest +12v from the vehicle?
The door switch would only have the -12v.. right?

[BrianG]

The best place for a 12v line would be the fuse box. There's usually an empty slot that has power but no fuse. Or, piggy-back onto an existing fuse (they sell piggy-back fuse taps). Just make sure the power is on even when the car is off. Randomly probing wires in other places may not be a good idea: at best, they may not power the LEDs or may not have power when you want; at worst, it could be an airbag wire (no need to tell you that would be bad, but those usually are sheathed in yellow as an indicator).

Yes, the door switch is the "ground" connection. Actually, if you look at most of those door switches, they are quite simple with only one wire "input". When you open the door, that wire makes contact with the vehicle chassis (via the switch housing), which is ground.

[rawfuls]

Originally Posted by BrianG

The best place for a 12v line would be the fuse box. There's usually an empty slot that has power but no fuse. Or, piggy-back onto an existing fuse (they sell piggy-back fuse taps). Just make sure the power is on even when the car is off. Randomly probing wires in other places may not be a good idea: at best, they may not power the LEDs or may not have power when you want; at worst, it could be an airbag wire (no need to tell you that would be bad, but those usually are sheathed in yellow as an indicator).

Yes, the door switch is the "ground" connection. Actually, if you look at most of those door switches, they are quite simple with only one wire "input". When you open the door, that wire makes contact with the vehicle chassis (via the switch housing), which is ground.

Interesting.
Note the before links where it says the location is the driver's kick panel.
IIRC, the Driver's Kick Panel was where a secondary fuse box was housed.

In this case, if the fuse for the door lights are located here, could I just tap into this fuse for the +12V, wire that into the +12V LED strip, and then tap from the ground in the door switch? (Wire this to the -12V LED strip).

Though, I always thought that those door switches were simple toggle switches, when door opened, switch 'extended' which made contact, and when pushed back in, circuit is broken.
Also, last I checked these were always flush to the chassis, so tapping into it.... would require me ripping apart the trim, no?

[rawfuls]

On the KIA forum, I received a reply (surprisingly), which recommended I just pull directly from the dome light.
I'd somehow fish-tape into the domelight, and wire everything accordingly.
Though this sounds so damn easy and simple, I have a feeling it's just not.

Since they're LEDs, would I have any trouble with current draw?
I'd want to have the stock lamp still in there, in addition to the LEDs..

[nativepaul]

Originally Posted by rawfuls

I'll probably use blue LEDs to make it look like a spaceshuttle!

As far as I am aware the space shuttles never had blue LED striplighting, thus no amount of blue LED striplighting is going to make a Kia Sportage look like a space shuttle.

If I wanted to do it (which I dont), I would tap into a pre-switched supply like the dome light and boot/trunk light, rather than the cigerette lighter for power supply and fuse box to switch it, the lights you linked are 400mA each so one under each seat and one under the glovebox is 2amps extra, which I would have thought would be OK but i have no idea what size wiring Kia use, you need to check that out, if in doubt, you might want to switch the existing incandescent bulb with an LED replacement which will lower the current.

Whichever way you do it, Unless you want bare wires all over the car you will have to remove some trim, whether is is centre console, carpet, rear seats, rear plastics to run from the fuse box in your footwell to the seat and trunk. Or headlining, B pillar plastics, carpet, to utilise the dome light. Depending on how and where you want to mount it you may not have to remove anything in the boot/trunk if you use the boot/trunk light for switched power as it is in there already.

[bruce750i]

I think they pull around 5 amps for every 5 meters.

You don't want them on while driving?

Power seat wiring is also a good place to tap a constant 12v.

[Bondonutz]

Not saying this how you "should" do it but it worked for me.

I installed several LEDs in my Jeep and just tapped into the existing 2 wires for the interior lights, the ones under the dash. No fuss no muss, had'em done in mere minutes.

I also found LED's on Ebay that had the same socket as the factory bulbs which made it super easy for doing the interior door lights and dome lights.

This is a example
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Xenon-White-...7b7abb&vxp=mtr

[rawfuls]

Originally Posted by nativepaul

As far as I am aware the space shuttles never had blue LED striplighting, thus no amount of blue LED striplighting is going to make a Kia Sportage look like a space shuttle.

If I wanted to do it (which I dont), I would tap into a pre-switched supply like the dome light and boot/trunk light, rather than the cigerette lighter for power supply and fuse box to switch it, the lights you linked are 400mA each so one under each seat and one under the glovebox is 2amps extra, which I would have thought would be OK but i have no idea what size wiring Kia use, you need to check that out, if in doubt, you might want to switch the existing incandescent bulb with an LED replacement which will lower the current.

Whichever way you do it, Unless you want bare wires all over the car you will have to remove some trim, whether is is centre console, carpet, rear seats, rear plastics to run from the fuse box in your footwell to the seat and trunk. Or headlining, B pillar plastics, carpet, to utilise the dome light. Depending on how and where you want to mount it you may not have to remove anything in the boot/trunk if you use the boot/trunk light for switched power as it is in there already.

Go away, you're ruining all the fun!
Just let me make this KIA as beautiful as possible.. which isn't much.
At least it's something!

In any case, removing trim is something I definitely will want to avoid.
I was hoping there'd be door lighting wiring going on under the front seats.. darn.

Originally Posted by bruce750i

I think they pull around 5 amps for every 5 meters.

You don't want them on while driving?

Power seat wiring is also a good place to tap a constant 12v.

Definitely not on while driving, would be a pretty decent distraction, maybe I could have them dim down if I really wanted to, but this is primarily for lighting things up at night.

Originally Posted by Bondonutz

Not saying this how you "should" do it but it worked for me.

I installed several LEDs in my Jeep and just tapped into the existing 2 wires for the interior lights, the ones under the dash. No fuss no muss, had'em done in mere minutes.

I also found LED's on Ebay that had the same socket as the factory bulbs which made it super easy for doing the interior door lights and dome lights.

This is a example
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Xenon-White-...7b7abb&vxp=mtr

The tricky thing about my situation is that I'm trying to install floor lights, as opposed to standard lighting around the dash/ceiling, where 12V supplies are easy to access..
Tapping into the domelight would require removing the headliner, and side trims to run the wire from domelight down the pillars and into the front seat floor area.
The dash might be a lot easier to do for the front floor lights, but there's not many lights/accessories down there that come on during the door lights...

Fuses would only provide one type of 12V (either + or -), so tapping into fuse would probably be a bad idea...