lmao.....After I finish the rest of my ambient light install, I am going to focus on a really, really nice and clean under the hood lighting system (and bed system) that will be difficult to tell if it came this way from the factory or if its aftermarket....and yes using the sensor under the hood is the key to a clean setup. Deltanu1142, your def on the right track! Dont deviate, your there!

 

I'm not seeing anything that looks like a switch. The only wires I can find that might change status with the hood opening are on the latch.

 

You could always wire up some underhood LED's straight to the parking lights. Chances are you would only need lights when you have parking lights on anyway. There would be a glow inside your hood everytime you have the parking lights on though.

 

It's better to use a relay and wire directly to the battery, using the oem pin switch + as the accessory wire. In this fashion there is no additional power requirement or drain on the electrical system directly thru other accessories....if this makes sense. A nice quality waterproof SPST relay.

 

You are theoretically correct Boosted, but the stock parking bulb is rated at 13.5 volts 28/8.3 watts.

A 5050 SMD LED module is rated at .24 watts, so if you put in a strip of say 10 of them you would be at 2.4 watts. (25% over stock rating of 8 watts) The stock wiring is able to handle that amount of overload easily.

A lot of people put in the plug and play Raptor grill lights which come in a set of 3 LED's that are usually 1.5 w each = 4.5 watts (50% over stock 8 w rating) that plug into the parking lights. Nobody has had any trouble with that setup drawing too much power that I have heard of and it has been around for quite a few years.

If you also put in a replacement LED into the standard parking bulb socket, it is rated to draw only 6.5 watts. Add in the strip of 10 SMD LED 5050 series and you are back close to to stock at ~8.9 watts.

Lastly you could put in a strip of 3528 leds as they draw1/3 the power of the 5050’s but give off 1/3 the lumens as well.


Or you could put in a relay as you have suggested.

YMMV

 

Add that to the list with the no low window washer fluid alert, and Ford is saving millions!

 

Excellent post!

 

I`m still sitting here wondering what the ammunition has to do with this mod?

 

you can never have too much ammo or lights

 

This is definitely where the "Hood Ajar" notification comes from.

Don't quote me on these wire colors, because I can't get a good look at them (under-hood lighting would help), but it looks like there's a blue/orange wire and a black/white wire going into the plug. I pulled the plug out of the hood latch and checked them. The black/white is ground, and the blue/orange wire is floating; there's negligible voltage on it. When I short those wires together, the hood shows closed; open them, and the hood shows open.

So a ground on the blue/orange wire means the hood is closed. I'll probably need to use a normally-closed contact to run the hood light strips. I don't necessarily like that due to the risk of failure, but the consequences are low and not much different from a plunger switch. My parts arrive this week. I can do some pre-installation, but I probably won't finish the wiring until I install my grille.