Footwell Lighting help?

I went to autozone and picked up a set of the flat 6 LED flexible light strips. My theory on installing them was i could tap into the dome light so they would come on when i turned the dome light on or when i opened the door. so i went for the black harness connector in the drivers kick panel. ive tried multiple combinations between the dome light harness and the door courtesy wiring connector.Ive gotten them to come on when the door is closed and not when it is open or they were on all the time and very dim. i did however ground to the ground in the kick panel and not directly to the harness to reduce clutter. could this be the reason im not getting the footwells to light up.any help as far as what harnesses/ wire colors or other parts i need or what i could be over looking?

thanks

 

I use a little 9-led flashlight and keep it in the overhead glasses case. Then I can point it anywhere I want it.

Whit

 

I taped into wires 2 and 9 of the black roof harness in the kick panel. On with the doors opens , fades when closed and on when manually switched to on at the dome

 

I hooked the foot well lights into the dome light itself. The dome light switch will operate the foot well lights same as the dome light. It was not all that hard to run the wires from the dome to the foot well.

 

i bought those same led strips (i think) i bought some others with a cigarette lights plug and connected the led strip and other lights all to that one plug so i can turn them all on with the push of a button and off the sa.me way

 

where do you find the wires to wire into dome light? i want my leds to turn on every time the dome light does. fading all that good stuff. thanks

 

I ran the wires up to the dome itself. I have an aftermarket LED light installed and I spliced into the wires going to the LED panel. Very simple and quick.

 

i have an aftermarket led light as well. where did u run the wires? kinda new to this wiring bs

 

Take off the drivers side hand grab on the A pillar and the drivers side sun visor. Pull off the dome light and let it hang down. It is very easy to fish the wire from the dome opening to the front on the windsheild and down the A pillar. You do not have to remove the headliner. Be careful when running the wire dorm the A pillar as to not block the airbag if deployed. From the A pillar it is clean drop into the wheels ell foot area.

 

Im in the midst of doing a write up on footwell light installs with dim capability using factory wiring

 

Could u pls expand on this?

 

I looked at the wiring schematics for a long time before just tapping into the dome light. The tapping into the existing dome light just seemed to make more sense then trying to solder on to the existing wiring harness. The added benny is the footwell lights act in the same manner as the dome light and the associated dome light switch.

 

I have a 2001 Tacoma Prerunner regular cab. I've been needing to swap out the factory lights for LEDs, but I when I put the LED bulb in I had the flickering problem unless the key was turned to the ACC position. Thanks to otoball in this thread I was able to fix that issue. I also wanted to have lights for my foot wells, so I ordered some 12 inch LED strips here. Now, I wanted the LED strips to be controlled by the dome light switch, so I took the advice from 95SLE earlier in this thread and tied it into the wires in my aftermarket dome light that I purchased here. I had to get the small 4cm X 4cm LED panel, so that it would fit in the dome assembly

Here's my write up:

.

Disconnect the negative battery terminal before you start!

Step 1: Solder the 1w - 100ohm resistor and install it in the assembly (otoball needed 2 resistors for his bulb, but mine worked with just one). Since the wiring in the LED kit is fairly long, and you need to splice the LED strips to them, run the connector out to the back side and back to the front through the holes indicated by the arrows.

Step 2: Splice about 7 ft. of wire to both the positive and negative wires. Solder the wires then wrap them in electrical tape (or use heat shrink, I didn't have any). Splice into the wires that connect directly to the festoon "bulb" so that if you mess up you can just order the connector as opposed to buying another LED panel.

Step 3: Complete the two splices and its ready to go into the truck.

Step 4: Remove the sun visors on both the driver and passenger side so that you can get access to the headliner area easier.

Step 5: Since the wire splices are behind the dome assembly, thread the wires into the frame and back out so that you can tuck it into the headliner.

Step 6: After tucking the wire in the headliner put the visors back and run the wires down the A pillar. The pillar cover is only held on by two clips, so you can pull it out with a little tug.

Step 7: Add a couple of zip ties to keep the installation clean!

Step 8: Pop the pillar cover back on and then attach the LED strip in the foot well area. Tuck the excess wires away and you're finished!

Side note: The LED panel that I used is slightly thicker than needed, so it prevents the dome light cover from lying flat on the assembly. Its only slightly noticeable though.

A couple more pics: The first one has a little glare from my iPhone case..

 

Thanks for the welcome! I spent hours trying to figure this out and I figured I could combine all the info I found and hopefully help someone save some time!

 

Nice work Justin!!!

I found your method to be the easiest for the install. The footwell lights are a nice touch in the cab.

 

sub'd Great write up guys!

 

Finished this yet?

 

Best place to find the dome light/door dimming wires is in the drivers kickpanel/door channel. Closest to the footwell anyways. I had put some on the bottom of my doors.

This shows the location of the wires I'm talking about.

 

This was the method I originally wanted to use, but when I removed the kick panel I couldn't figure out which wires connected to the dome light. There is a bundle of 8-10 wires and I didn't want to start blindly cutting them. Do you have a method that I can use to figure it out?