My LED Build - What am I missing?

I'm expanding my LED build by adding 10 LED's in cup holders, glove box and above the 12 volt power ports. The links below were provided by another member RAPR (his build is here), but I modified them for the Blue LED's that I'm doing, you can also do amber, green, white, red, etc...

I'll have some extra wire and splicers on hand when doing this install.

My plan is to tap into the dashboard dimmer switch, then go to the toggle switch so that I can turn them off when going down the road, but still be able to dim them if they are too bright...

Here's what I've purchased:

The WAGO clamps
http://www.ebay.com/itm/5-Wago-222-4...item20aefae732


LED holders (a must buy): (I used a 1/4" drill bit which worked perfectly)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/390380286829...84.m1423.l2649


LED'S:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/10-pcs-LED-...037?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4ab2a4f155



Toggle Switch:
http://www.oznium.com/scion-switch-led

 

So, here's a picture after the first phase of my install... Now I can easily add LED's anywhere I want in the truck using the Quick Connects I bought.

I put 1 LED in the front cupholder that will light that set of 2 holders, then 1 LED in each of the others underneath the rubber flaps on Northwest "corner" of the cupholder. Though that might help prevent glare in my eyes while driving at night... I have enough problems with halos from my LASIK surgery.

I also put 1 LED in the lower center console!

Future LED locations include the glove box and replacing the A/C controls with blue LED's.

 

Do like.

 

1 odd phenomenon that I can't quite figure out... When I connected the LED's to the dimmer, when I turned the dimmer to the lowest/off setting, the LED's lit up, when I turned the dimmer to the highest/on setting, the LED's went off... I'm a former electrician on high voltage, but this low voltage stuff messes with my head... any guesses?

For now I just tapped into the hot with a piggyback connection. 1 cool thing is that by doing that, when I lock/unlock my truck, all the LED's flash which looks pretty awesome!

 

My guess is if you have it tapped before the switch then that resistance goes up and sends the juice to the LED side of the circuit. However, I'm not an electrician by any means, just a couple basic electronic classes under my belt.

 

This...all the dimmer switch is, is a variable resistor. Sounds like you may have just tapped into the wrong side of the switch. Kind of hard to tell without a visual schematic of the system...

 

There were three wires coming out, one that was always hot, one that went on off with the switch, then one I'm assuming that was the ground...???

Also, I did put a switch on them so I can turn them on/off at my leisure...
In my high voltage electrical experience, you have a hot feeding the switch, and a "switched" leg leaving the switch... For a resistance based switch, there had to be a neutral (ground) coming from it which explains the 3rd wire... Why it's going in the opposite direction of dim/full as the dashboards LED's I installed, I have no idea... LOL

 

If you havent already check the wire you believe to be the ground, any variable resistor switches I've seen dont have a ground. Power just runs through it and grounds out later in the circuit. Its kind of driving me nuts cause I cant actually SEE this thing lol...

 

Okay, this isn't the exact switch, but it's comparable... And the guy in the forum where I found this did say that there is a ground in it...???

 

hmmm.... I'm not sure then, this one has me stumped.

 

I had this problem when I put different color leds in my oem fog switch to differentiate on and off. Here's a link to the thread I posted about my prob. http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/2n...og-light-indicator-questions-help-please.html
What I found after alittle more research I found that the leds all need to be the same voltage and have the correct size resistor wired to them. Those two things gave me the exact same problem. This website fixed myproblem maybe it will help you too. Just put in the info and if will design your wiring guide. http://led.linear1.org/led.wiz

 

Interesting...So each LED needs its own resistor in line with it to make the dimmer switch work with them?

 

If they aren't 12volt leds then yes. Your truck is all 12v and those leds are prob around 2.6vf. Which is why when the dimmer switch is all the way down the leds are super bright. Turn up the dimmer you get way to much voltage to the leds so they turn off.

 

Makes sense!

 

Yeah it took me like 3 days to figure out why this happened. I ended up going into orvac electronics and they were able to shed some light on the problem and give me that website. Lol.
I hope this helps out the op.

 

Well it helped me for future reference! I would have never thought about that.

 

Cool. Glad to hear it!

 

Thanks for the info, I'll check it out!

 

I was getting a 14.2v read off of the switch... But when I hook them up to constant power, they run just fine... Beats me, but I'll get it figured out...

 

That's weird. But give that website a try. Maybe just start with a resistor on one led and see if that led works as it should on the dimmer. If it does great. And you know what to do but if it doesn't then your back right where you started. no harm done. Haha