My LED Bed Lights

I've been wanting to light my bed somehow but don't really want to cut my truck to do a third brake light/cargo light mod.
I came across a couple good write ups here so decided to do an LED strip with the switch in the dash.
Got all the supplies, switch from OTRATTW, LED is a 5 meter spool of 5050, 60 light per meter from Yorktek on eBay.


Took the kick plate and floor trim pieces off, starting with the footrest.

The red cable is for my amp and sub.

The switch blank came out real easy by starting a screw through the middle then pulling straight out.
It did need to be trimmed out a bit with a dremel for the switch to fit.


We ran the power wire through the existing grommet.


We ran it out through the rail, took out the bed cubby for easy access and ran the ground to the body behind the cubby.




My friend Steve is good with wiring.


to be cont.

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We ran the wires out and down one of the drain holes for a nice neat look.


Used some dielectric grease, shrink tubing and a small torch to seal it up good.





cont.

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I washed, dried, and then wiped the underside of the rails with alcohol


Got the switch wired up and installed.


We used an add-a-circuit and put it in the door lock fuse slot for use without the key on.

Stuck the strip on and that's pretty much it.






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I used plastic flexible conduit in the corners.
The 3M adhesive didn't want to stick very well at the corners so I got some heavy duty double-sided tape and it seems to be sticking well now.






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Looks great, -love the light output. Is there a way to make those LED 'stickers' weather resistant?

 

I'm going to do something similar with Nichia LEDs. Any tips for mounting other than what you mentioned previously?

 

Maybe Gorilla Glue?

I'll see how they hold up. I saw on someone else's thread that they had the strips with 3M adhesive and they've been on his truck for two years....

The LED's themselves are waterproof, it's just the adhesive that might be an issue.

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Not that I can think of right now. If any issues arise I'll update.

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Do you have any specifics on cutting and splicing the strip? I am thinking about doing this also but have never cut and spliced this type of LED strip before. Was 5 meters enough?

 

5 meters was perfect, had about a foot to cut off.

I left it in one strip, covering the exposed corner areas with the plastic conduit, so I only had to cut once, the leftover foot. Didn't have to do any splicing that way. I've seen others that cut three separate strips and spliced wire in for the corners. I wasn't that ambitious.

I just wrapped the cut end with electrical tape for now but will probably put a dab of silicone on there to make sure it is sealed.

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Nice job! Looks clean! Nice write up too!

 

Sub'd for future reference

 

I just ordered a set. I already have the wiring in place for my canopy LEDs so this should be easy. Depending on how these turn out I may just replace my canopy LEDs too. Thanks again.

 

Well done, John & Steve...(I couldn't find the smiley doing the golf clap so you get this trio of dancing tacos instead)...

Question for you...what do you figure this cost in parts and how much time did it take you (ballpark)?

Cheers.
Randy

 

The LED strip I used was $15.96 with free shipping from eBay.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/White-Water...379326?pt=US_Car_Lighting&hash=item2a2780ce7e

The adhesive backing is 3M but it's not sticking very well. It may be my fault for not really cleaning the underside of the rails thoroughly enough.
I'm going to have to either glue it or do it all with double sided tape.

The switch is from http://otrattw.com/

It was $18.50 shipped.
It said on the site when ordering you can change the text on the switch, I wanted it to say "BED LIGHTS" but they didn't change it. Not a big deal

The fuse tap I got from Advance Auto locally for $7.
The ATM fits in our fusebox but our fuses are low profile so the 20 amp I pulled from the door lock slot would not fit in the slots on top of the fuse tap. Fortunately I had bought some 10 amp ATM fuses so I put two of those in the two slots on the fuse tap. Hope that's not confusing.

I bought a 40 foot spool of 18 gauge wire for around 7 or 8 bucks.

I (Steve) already had the connectors, shrink wrap tubing, and torch.

Also had the dielectric grease, zip ties, etc.

Oh, the plastic conduit was under $10, I only used a few inches on each corner.

It took the two of us around 2 hours.

Also, don't forget to disconnect your battery before you do anything. You wouldn't want to accidentally short something out.

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After a couple years of washing it, then summer heat, then winter rain cold n snow, etc.......the 3m backing came off and my lights started sagging.

I ripped them down and cleaned underneath of railing and put a new strip on. Took 15 minutes and it's back to amazing again.

 

My LED strips came with a 3M tape that held for about two hours then began to release (yes I cleaned the rails). I took the time to remove the residue from the light strip and then applied a good hot glue to the back of the lights. Since I couldn't effectively be fast enough to place them back onto the bottom of the rail before the glue cooled, I used a Harbor Freight heat gun to heat the rails, allowing me to position light strip with the glue melting to the rail. It seems to be holding extremely well. However, those rails do get awful hot with that heat gun. But no complaints.
Not hot "hobby" glue. a good glue from the depot or lowes (450*)