sbarron
Senior Member
- Joined
- Feb 28, 2015
- Posts
- 3,363
- Reaction score
- 2,279
- Location
- Wasilla, Alaska
- Ram Year
- 2013
- Engine
- 5.7 HEMI
I just did this on my truck. You want to tie into the dome light so the ground is lit by both the remote or opening any of your doors. It's really simple to do. You do not need a relay. I tried wiring one with the dome light as the trigger. The problem is that when using the remote to unlock the doors the voltage on the dome light isn't enough to fully activate the relay so it ends up making an almost painful sound as the relay chatters. The total current on the system is low enough with strip LEDs to be safe to use without a relay.
Don't understand what you mean by the dome light circuit not having enough "voltage" to activate the relay...
1. It's not voltage you're talking about its amperage. The truck system as a whole is all "12 Volt".
2. A relay is triggered by such a small amount of power (it's measured in milliamps) that you can trigger a relay from an OEM circuit and the trucks computer won't even recognize the parasitic drain, no error codes).
I will agree with you that in most cases, adding an LED or two, or even a low wattage strip light, won't hurt anything. That said, adding higher wattage accessories to certain OEM circuits need to be done carefully or you will end up with an unhappy computer, or worse, blown fuses or burnt wires.
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