I need/want to switch from an incandescent dome light to LED in my ARE cap

I picked up a used 2014 Tacoma last week, and it had an ARE cap on it.


The bulb is out on the cap, but ARE no longer sells the bulbs. This is fine with me, because I want to look into running an LED strip light down the shell. The truck already has a fused wire connected directly from the battery. I need to clean up the wires a bit, here are the wires for the brake light and the dome light:

and


Is there any reason I couldn't keep the switch and unsolder the old dome light and solder the new LED strip? I could then use some double-sided tape and velcro to attach the LED strip to the cap liner down the length of the cap?


Is there a simpler solution? I brought it by the local ARE dealer, and he could sell me a sealed 12" LED strip light with a switch for $36. I feel like I can get a cheaper price and a longer LED strip by putting this together myself.

 

I put 5m cheap ebay 50/50 led strip ziptied under rails all the way around.
I tied into dome light wiring but mine already had inline fuses installed.

 

Mine is fused from the battery...


Do you think I could just solder these to the switch?

Led World Black PCB 16.4ft 5M 5050 SMD 300 Leds Flexible Strip Lights Cool White Waterproof DC12V

http://www.amazon.com/Led-World-16-...words=waterproof+led+strip+12+volt+5050+black

 

I think those led's were 5a? so as long as the swith is rated above that. I did this.

 

Time to figure out the switch's rating, if I can't figure it out, I will also get a switch.

 

Good luck and take lots of pics

 

I haven't done mine yet, still in the planning stage, but I've ordered one of these for power...

$6 Lumision ADD CIRCUIT BLADE STYLE ATT LOW PROFILE LP MINI FUSETAP FUSE TAP + 5AMP FUSE

http://www.amazon.com/Lumision-Shipping-CIRCUIT-PROFILE-FUSETAP/dp/B00I0MWPXU

I'm going to remove the 'horn' fuse and plug this into its place, then put the horn fuse and another 10A fuse in the 'tap', and attach my power wire to the pigtail... you already have power so you can skip that phase.

for the lighting, I've ordered this molding,

TORCHSTAR 1M/3.3ft U-Shape Aluminum Channel - LED Aluminum Extrusion for Flex/Hard LED Strip Light w/Oyster White cover-U02, Pack of 5

http://www.amazon.com/U-Shape-Aluminum-recessed-installation-Mounting/dp/B00VUAYFW8


and will be attaching 1 piece of that down the center of my ceiling, with 1 meter of 60 LED/meter 5050 RGB led 'tape' inside hte molding. Haven't quite decided how I'll secure it yet, maybe 3M weatherstripping glue ('gorilla snot'), maybe tiny screws into the carpet lining on my snugtop.

I'm using RGB tape because I want to be able to get dim red light for my amateur astronomy (I use the tailgate as my 'desk'), and white light for general working. amber or cool blue-green mood lighting is a bonus. I haven't quite decided how I'll control the color, I have a couple RGB power controllers that have a IR remote control dimmer that can select colors etc, but messing with a remote control seems kinda funky. I'd *love* to find a triple slider control, liek an audio mixer panel, so all 3 together is white, or red only or any color combination you want by adjusting them seperately, but they don't seem to exist. I found a triple-knob RGB control I might just use.

 

Awesome!

As for sticking to the headliner, the cap place said that they double sided tape the study to industrial Velcro and attach it to the carpeted liner.

 

oops, cant' use that tap in the horn fuse, as the 'hot' side is such that the pigtail would run into the sidewall of the fuse box... ok, so radio#2 fuse, or something.


edit: just tracked down the wiring diagrams. 'radio #2' is the fuse for the optional separate audio amplifier, its always on power, so this is a pretty good place to tap for me as I'm pretty sure I don't *have* that optional amp, as my Taco has a pretty basic ('SR-5') interior and just the basic CD stereo.

 

Do you have the tow package? I have seen write ups where people tap that for power and then find a place to grind to the chassis

 

I do, but afaik, the hitch only has BATT power when the engine is on, and I want my dome lights to work with the ignition completely off.

I toyed with the idea of putting an aux battery in back to run the lights and any other 12V stuff I plug in back there, and wiring that battery to the trailer hitch harness so it charges when driven, but there's not a good place to mount the battery, I don't want it inside the bed, and I don't want to lose the left side storage cubby which I keep my tow straps and a whisk broom in.

 

http://www.usledsupply.com/shop/rgb-3k-manual-slide-control.html

 

dude, I've been googling for a week now trying to find that!!!!

ordered already.

 

btw that white LED tape you listed, thats 5 amps for 5 meters. 1 meter of that tape should be way more than bright enough to light up your truck like daylight. 1 meter is 1 amp.

those 906 dome lights like came in those shells are 9 watt bulbs. at 13V, thats about 0.7 amps (watts/volts = amps, because volts*amps = watts)

13V at 1 amp is about 13 watts. 13 watts of LEDs are as bright as 50 watts of regular light bulbs.

 

1 meter of 60 5050/meter LED tape, mounted in the center of the ceiling...

at about 0.15 amps


same LEDs at 1 amp.

 

I got what is probably a cheaper version than yours. It looks like this one..