Bed lights
sleeping on the job
Joined: Oct 2011
Posts: 227
Likes: 0
From: Otown
themandan40/joshg-your right, I misunderstood... they are ON while driving at night. With a life of 15,000+ hours, I figured it didn't matter if they were on while driving (which is a wimpy answer!). More truthfully, I hadn't found a suitable switch like the one that jwil8957 has in his setup. My plan is to install one soon, but this will do for now.
Sorry to mislead the troops.
Sorry to mislead the troops.
this has to be super easy, especially for us with a tow package. it wouldn't be more than 5' of wire tapped down to the hitch if not off the tag light.
5 Year Member
Joined: Nov 2011
Posts: 671
Likes: 164
From: Georgia
Since I have no business personally attempting any wiring on my truck, what would be a reasonable price to have a shop tap into the battery, run wiring to the bed, and connect the wiring to the LED lights and a switch? In other words, just the installation cost; I would provide the lights and switch.
Member
Joined: Mar 2011
Posts: 59
Likes: 0
Originally Posted by BMWBig6
LED's don't draw much power right? What about just using a switch and some standalone batteries to power these (vs. using the truck's power or battery)? Wouldn't one get a few hundred hours off of the right type of battery? I thought I read about someone else doing it this way on here.
Engineer
Joined: Nov 2011
Posts: 778
Likes: 42
From: Alabama
I just tapped into the wire the camper shell place ran. All they did was run a wire under the truck and up to the fuse block on the radiator support and just tucked it out of the way at different spots so it wouldn't come into contact with any moving parts. There is a 5A fuse at the fuse block and a 5A back at the bed (double covered)...as the slightest short will blow a 5A...
If you had someone do it I'd say no more than an hour's labor as someone else said.
Concerning a remote power source...most LEDs will run on 9-36v so a 9v battery COULD run one for a little while but since it's at the low end of the range I've always found a 12v source to be brighter...maybe wire up a harness that would put 2 9v batteries in series (18v) and you'd be more than covered.
If you had someone do it I'd say no more than an hour's labor as someone else said.
Concerning a remote power source...most LEDs will run on 9-36v so a 9v battery COULD run one for a little while but since it's at the low end of the range I've always found a 12v source to be brighter...maybe wire up a harness that would put 2 9v batteries in series (18v) and you'd be more than covered.
Last edited by ClaySlayer; Jan 16, 2012 at 10:08 PM.
Senior Member
Joined: Aug 2012
Posts: 471
Likes: 99
I just installed a 15 foot strip of LEDs. Mine are powered by a 3 cell lipo. The sort of battery used my modelers for airplanes, cars, helicopters etc. they are good for about hundreds of charge cycles. Can be charged in your vehicle. And a high mah battery would run less than $20.00. A 1000 mah powered mine for over an hour. Think about it. An hour is a long time. It's not like you are living in there. 4000 an 5000 mah batteries are available.
Check it out
Check it out