MESO Puddle Light build

For a moment there I questioned compatibility, seeing your banner ‘06. But remembered you specifically mentioned 360 which is a NEW(er) feature, so new truck. What color did you get?

 

I forgot to update that. I grabbed a 2022 limited in October. I was working on it yesterday and wound up having Mardi Gras revelers come to my house, so needless to say, I was very distracted. Apparently, the idiocy rubbed off. LOL

 

Meso customs puddle lights have been installed in my 2022 Limited. Now, if only I can replace the white LEDs with blue. Already sent an inquiry to VLEDs.

 

So, blue puddles?

 

Probably can put blue tint on it? Lol

 

That’s what I was thinking… tint film or paint.

 

VLEDs puddles are 5500k light; they’d have to manufacture a new pod to get your blue light. That’s very unlikely as they are not manufacturing MESO pods anymore. As others have suggested, putting a blut tint film would be the way to go.

 

They replied. No blue puddle LEDs. Bummer. I had blue puddles on my 06 RX8 and they were cool. I'm not sure the tint would be the way to go, but I may try it. .

 

Remove the puddles and leave wiring, plug in some blue MAX pods with flush mounts. Need to drill though. Not a lot of output with blue so might need more than one.

either way, can be done and they offer blue lights.

 

I have been looking for a passenger-side lower mirror cover for a while and cannot seem to find them anywhere. If anyone can help me out it would be appreciated.

 

I got you. Send me a pm and I'll reply in the morning.

 

I have also been looking for a passenger-side lower mirror cover and have had zero luck. If anyone can help me out that would be amazing! Pretty sure someone took it off mine and would really appreciate any help.

 

I’ve had my puddle pods installed for a couple of years and absolutely love them.

I only just recently finally got around to installing the switch, and while being able to manually control the lights is awesome, right away I noticed that the led backlight inside the switch is quite bright and doesn’t dim with the rest of the instruments.

Digging carefully through the many pages of this thread I think I found the solution in comments by @Puppypunter , @caribe makaira , and @daveeasa .

It sounds like the best thing to do is to tap the illumination ground in the a pillar connector, and drop that down to the switch alongside the rest of the wiring, swap it with ground that feeds the switch led - and maybe also add in a resistor +/- 2.7k for good measure.

Is that about right? Has anyone else done this mod or a variation of it?

Seems sort of surprising that @MESO wouldn’t have wired it this way from the beginning.

Quoted the most relevant bits of the comments that sent me wandering down this path below:

 

For a source of dash illumination control, any switch in the dash is closer than the IN1 connector.

 

Knowing what I know now, it’s just much easier and cleaner to get switch illumination from the cargo connector. Kyle even had a batch of them made and they are for sale in various places. Messing with the A pillar T is tricky and delicate while the cargo is big wire and easy.

I’ve been meaning to convert mine over but haven’t taken the time.

https://guildoutfitters.com/products/daisy-chain-harness

@kmorgan3 please let us know if you have an alternative source for that stuff? I’m not sure if what I linked is where you’d prefer people to buy it.

ETA: corrected the link.

@IcemanPNW I could probably just build it for you if you send me your switch harness. I am pretty sure I have leftover resistors. It’s not super fun to solder but it’s not too bad either.

 

I’d use a different source. @CaliRaisedLed is selling a knockoff with issues and their company, in general, is near the bottom of the barrel. The owner is an entitled prick with a history of taking advantage of small businesses. Here’s a good recent read:
https://www.scribd.com/document/358164899/Rago-v-Cali-Raised-LED-Complaint

Use Guild Outfitters:
https://guildoutfitters.com/products/daisy-chain-harness

 

Well of course, now that you both point that out it seems obvious.

Do I want to feed both positive and negative for the illumination from the cargo harness or should I keep the existing positive from the A pillar? I suppose the illumination wiring is all one big circuit and it doesn’t matter?

All I need to do is drop a resistor inline right? That’s easy enough. Thanks for the offer, though!

 

Yes it doesn’t matter but I wanted to switch the load for positive to the cargo instead since it’s thicker wire. And keep load off the apillar, use that just for the overhead. No justification for wanting that but it feels best to me to minimize apillar use to just the dome neg trigger

And yes, in-line resistor. Break the shared ground and keep chassis ground for the on mode then PWM through resistor to the illumination ground. That’s how I remember it.

I think Johnny did his resistor on the positive and I did mine on the negative since I had to cut it anyway. Same idea either way.

I remember a diode too, for my dome rock, can’t remember if it had anything to do with the puddles, I think two separate things.

 

I wonder if there’s a ground on the cargo switch, then you can avoid the need for the chassis lead too… Hmm.

 

There is a clean ground on the cargo.