LED bedlights are dim

I installed some LED strip lights in the bed of my truck today, and it hasn't gone too well. The strip lights came from AutoZone, and they really weren't the cheap ones. The package states you can connect up to 12 feet of them together. I ran 4 feet under each bed rail beneath my camper shell. I ran 18 gauge wire from the passenger side lights to the driver side lights, and I connected them to a toggle switch, ran them through the driver side tail light, and then ran the wires to the front of the truck and connected it to the battery. I used the ground connection that is on the fender where the negative side of the battery connects to. I used an inline fuse (12 gauge wire) at the battery that contained a 15 amp fuse. Most of the connections were soldered, and a few of them used wire connectors. All wire connections either used electrical tape or heat shrink over the solder. The lights are very dim when hooked to the 12V battery on my truck, but the lights are very bright when connected to the button and small tester battery that came with the lights (so you could see how the lights would look while in the package). I bypassed the inline fuse holder and fuse to see if the 12 gauge wire was causing an issue, and the lights were still dim. What am I doing wrong? Is it possible that it is too long of a run with the wiring? I am clearly not an expert in wiring so feel free to blast my set up if I did something wrong. Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Austin

 

Did you by chance wire the LED's in a "series" circuit? Are you testing each strip individually or the whole set with the battery pack?

Using the negative post on the truck battery improve brightness over the fender connection?

have you tested the truck battery for proper voltage?

 

I am an idiot. I wired the power from the battery into the light for the toggle switch instead of the actual incoming power. Lights are nice and bright now.

 

Glad you got it figured out.