Thinking of killing two birds with one stone per say. Want to put in puddle lights and want to add lights to illuminate down the side of my truck while backing up. Puddle lights solely for the cool look. The side backup lights to assist at night looking through my side mirrors (windows tinted).

My thoughts are, if I put a led i.e. cree light (see picture) near the front of my running boards facing backwards it would turn on when I hit my remote to open the truck (puddle lights) and it would turn on when I put my truck into reverse (side backup lights).

Taking aside exactly what wires to tap into and knowing it would all need to be grounded my assumption would be that I would need a relay or two?

My assumption is I cannot tap into the “puddle light” pwr source and the "reverse light" pwr souce and simply tie both into the cree light? Although highly unlikely both would be live at the same time.

Would appreciate any comments or suggestions before I get going with this. If a viable option will seek out exactly what wires to tap into.
Thanks

 

It's your lucky day. I did this recently on my '15 and the solution works for your model as well.

https://www.f150forum.com/f118/wirin...2/#post4374897

To make it short and sweet, you can do this with a relay, a fused power line from the battery, and the signal from the white bulb on your third brake light. It's a very simple wiring job and the end result is a light that turns on whenever you open a door or hit the unlock button.

 

J15, Thanks that looks like a good option. Wired to the battery means constant power to the relay and because you have taped in the white wire it completes the circuit. Can I assume the white wire is ground? Or a switched wire per say.. In either case can I find the socalled "white wire" for the reverse signal and splice them together giving me power for reverse as well..

Thanks again and Cheers

 

The signal wire in a relay is not connected to the power input. The way a relay works, it connects the power input to the power output when a signal is detected. The signal itself is not used for power.

You could indeed use the reverse lights as a signal. I'd be careful with the use of multiple signal sources in a single relay. It may do some goofy things.

 

Your idea with using the puddle light and revers light together for the signal would work just fine I would just recommend installing a diode inline on both signal wires to prevent one from back feeding the other.if you are looking for the puddle light wire it's the violet one in the mirror harness