under car neons to work like in car dome light

[Tenjho]

Hey All

i want to install some under car neons but dont want them on while driving, so basically i want the neons to turn on in the same way as the lights would turn on inside the car.

so the idea is the light and neons would be on in the following situation.

1. when i unlock the car (when you unlock the car the light turn on and i also want the neons to turn on as well and the neons would turn off when the light is turns off).

2 when the door is open

3 when i switch the dome light to on

so i want to know if this idea is possible before i go out and buy these neons because i have no idea about how electrical stuff works on cars

[tadz0rz]

Yeah you should be able to do this, you just need to tap into the dome light signal wire. But when the ignition is turned off i believe the light gets dimmed and drops the voltage down.

You will most likely have to implement a relay system for it to work correctly, IE use the dome light as your signal on connection, hardwire a line from the battery to the relay and then a line to your neons. And your ground of course.

It will be possible, but if your not familar with hooking up relays and electronics, maybe one of the SA boys might be able to help you out.

[AJjnr86]

I hooked my interior neons up to my door switch without a relay, they do dim a little but basically cutout sooner as they don't have the voltage to stay on

I would think having an external switch is easier than having them connected to the dome light switch, IMHO. So in other words, connect to the door switch, thru a 3 way switch...

[jolly_tas]

This is along the same idea I have but to use LEDS to light up along the side of the car, the grill and if I manage it the external door handles. (my brothers X5 does all this and it looks great at night).

[aspir3]

So can any one help where the best place to cut into the interior light? I would assume by the passenger foot well. What colour is the wire?

And the best place to run the wire to the underneath of the car? Is there a rubber grommet somewhere on the floor?

[FFEEkY]

Its certainly possible. I had this on a camry I owned a couple of years ago. It has green and white undercar neons and in behind the grill aswell. They were connected up to a three way switch which was hidden in the drivers footwell. They would either be Always off, on with interior light, or always on. The on with interior light looked awesome as you approached the car at night!

As for hooking up the electrical side of things, I paid someone to do that for me. I just mounted the lights where I wanted them and ran all the cables to where the auto elec wanted them. Only cost around $150 for him to wire it all up, and it looked clean and professional too.

[Graham]

underbody neons would use a fair amount of power and as tadz mentioned will probably dim if the car is off.

not sure if you could hook them up to the normal door open/close fuse as it may not handle te extra power, but it would certainly be possible to do

[jolly_tas]

As far as wiring it up, I found where the connection for the interior light is in the control module behind the glove box (just played around with a volt meter and closing the door). There is a thread on here somewhere about a rubber grommet in the firewall on the drivers side to feed the wire from the inside to the engine bay. That's as far as I have got with this but hopefully over the next couple of months I will finish it off.

[AJjnr86]

the plug that u look for is a 3 pinned plug, coloured wires r red, yellow and purple (from memory)

i can take photos if needed

[Tenjho]

Thanks all the info

after reading through the post this seem way to complicated for someone like me to pull off lol. never had experience with moding cars (cj is my first car) and thought ill do something simple like lighting and not mechanical stuff. but it appears just as hard. ><

owell the info would still help other who wants to do something similar.

[Tenjho]

Its certainly possible. I had this on a camry I owned a couple of years ago. It has green and white undercar neons and in behind the grill aswell. They were connected up to a three way switch which was hidden in the drivers footwell. They would either be Always off, on with interior light, or always on. The on with interior light looked awesome as you approached the car at night!

this is exactly what i wanted to do i would assume it would look great and have never seen any car with this setup in my area. and the front grills were going to be my next step

[jolly_tas]

Thanks all the info

after reading through the post this seem way to complicated for someone like me to pull off lol. never had experience with moding cars (cj is my first car) and thought ill do something simple like lighting and not mechanical stuff. but it appears just as hard. ><

owell the info would still help other who wants to do something similar.

Don't get disillusioned with it. Modding is all trial and error. Start with what you are comfortable with and work towards bigger things. Do a lot of reading and you will find some things aren't as hard as you imagine. There is plenty of help around on this site. Hope that you do keep on with your idea as it will look trick. Best of luck.

[AutoMoGLOW]

This is along the same idea I have but to use LEDS to light up along the side of the car, the grill and if I manage it the external door handles. (my brothers X5 does all this and it looks great at night).

Yea i was gonna say the same thing the rugger LED strips we carry are perfect for this cheaper, more durable and easy to install. The LED strips are much smaller then the bulky glass tubes too.

[Tenjho]

can anyone point me to some source of information that might help with this installation. i dont have any idea where to start on the electrical stuff of our cj lancer.

since uni break is near thought ill do some reading before hand and try to get a start on it in the holiday.

[ofey]

Here we go:

Here's how I got my grill to light up whenever the dome light circuit is on. Obviously instead of a neon bar behind the front grill you'd be tying your under car neons to this circuit.

The only instructions I got when I did it was which wire to tap for the on/off signal. You can see this fuse box behind the passenger side glove compartment:


and the wires you need to tap are the red and yellow wires. This is where you tap the power from. Put a multimeter to it to figure it out. I can't remember now.



If this is still too difficult for you to understand, you may need an auto-electrician to do it for you.

To save yourself money, what you could do is rack up all your undercar neons, take the wiring into your car and then go see him and show him the above 2 pictures and tell him what you want. It should take him less than 1 hr to complete the wiring and relays for you.