NEED QUICK HELP, truck's torn apart in driveway, wife wants to go to dinner!

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SafetyMan43

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Trying to rig LED's for under the tonneau to the cargo light.

Tapped white/brown wire in driver side C post, and tapped ground wire at same location.

tested with a multimeter, everything fine.

touched LED leads to the wires I made, they flashed once, then shut off, including cab cargo light.

Lessened amount of led's by half (had a string for each side of bed), everything worked, tried other half, everything worked. tried both halves together, flash and nothing.

I grabbed another spool of LEDs (bought 2) and tried the whole spool, worked perfect.

NOW, even without any LEDs hooked in, and all wiring removed, I only get a quick flash of the stock cab cargo lights...

It acts as though there may be a circuit breaker somewhere, If it were a fuse blown, why would it flash again next time??

I'm pretty good with 12v wiring, with the new wiring system, I'm nervous about relays and such, so I went way downstream of everything, and made sure I had 12v before starting...

I'm lost... HELP!
 

jeepguy_1980

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It's not going to work with any LED's because it's a load sensing circuit. You need a relay. See the write up in the link in my signature.

Edit: Here is the link too
 
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SafetyMan43

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Thank you....

Now why will it not work when I put it all back the way it originally was?
 

jeepguy_1980

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It will. The computer just needs to shut all the way down. Give it about 10 minutes. That's 10 minutes with the doors closed and leaving the truck alone.
 
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SafetyMan43

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I appreciate your help.

This just makes absolutely no sense to me at all...

What benefit is there to not being able to tap into 12v for something like this?

OTHER than the friggin stealer making more money....

I've never messed with the stuff you have listed in that link, and I'm like Missouri..

SHOW ME, I can type all day and explain ****, but I need hands on to really learn ****.
I'm lost.

You ain't in San Antonio by any chance, are you?
 
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SafetyMan43

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So... is there any way to wire these up to a regular switch?

I thought the cargo light was a good place to pull, but I'm too stupid to do that.
And I'm done spending money on this project.

I guess my grand plan of adding courtesy lights under the rockers hooked to the dome light can be scrapped to, eh?
 

jeepguy_1980

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I relay is $5.00 and is a basic 12v component.

The advantage to the system that they use now is being able to tell a driver when a bulb goes out and to save you fuses, or even fires, in the event of a short.
 
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SafetyMan43

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A relay tapped into the same system won't show the computer a different load?
 
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SafetyMan43

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And I truly appreciate your help.... Sometimes I get a bit short when I'm frustrated.

Thank you!
 

jeepguy_1980

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Not enough to matter. It's about 0.1A
 

jeepguy_1980

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You don't have to make yours as fancy as I did mine. I made mine so that I didn't cut or tap any factory wires. I also ran a bunch of wires to the back, so that I could put in a tailgate or manual switch (which I haven't done yet).

Right now mine only gets power when the cargo lights have power.
 

White Beauty

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A relay tapped into the same system won't show the computer a different load?
No it won't cause the relay only used the power to flip a switch internally. Thus creating no actual draw of current from the circuit. You'll need to Run a line direct from the battery for the constant power side of the relay. Use the cargo 12 as the switched source of the relay. Ground the relay and wire up and everything should be fine. This is how I planned to add the exact same type of led setup as your describing.

Good luck.

Sent from my SGH-I747M using Tapatalk
 
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SafetyMan43

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Got 'er done guys...

Thank you SO MUCH!!

Ran a lead to the battery, put a fuse inline at the battery, and a lighter fuse at the relays. I'm going to run some courtesy lights off the same circuit, powered by the dome... tomorrow.

I bought small tubing from Lowes to run all of the wires through, so they are out of the elements, and much more protected than from a loom. I'll get pics of that later, when I get the relays cleaned up and fastened down. They will be under the rear seat, behind the carpet.

The row across the front... not sure about. Didn't want to mount them to the front frame of the tonneau. I may find a way to put some sort of visor in front of them.

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jeepguy_1980

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Glad it worked out. Nice job.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk
 

bskl76

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No it won't cause the relay only used the power to flip a switch internally. Thus creating no actual draw of current from the circuit. You'll need to Run a line direct from the battery for the constant power side of the relay. Use the cargo 12 as the switched source of the relay. Ground the relay and wire up and everything should be fine. This is how I planned to add the exact same type of led setup as your describing.

Good luck.

Sent from my SGH-I747M using Tapatalk

Do u have to do this for 2012 model year? Thanks
 
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SafetyMan43

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Nice! Like those tool boxes too!

Thanks!

I've had those new in the boxes for years.. finally cut the tape on the cardboard and got them out. Trying to decide what to do with them, they are just sitting there now, not fastened yet.
 
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