Has anyone modified the bed light to control aux ditch lights?

I am considering using my bed light circuit to turn on aux ditch lights mounted to the sides of my cabrack by adding a relay from under the bed light. I know about the leak risk, but can properly reseal it. Has anyone done this? If so, how did you do it and how did it go?

 

Following

 

You would tap the +12v near the lamp and use it to trigger the relay. Power and ground for the lights would still come from the batt on a decent gauge wire.

Cargo lamp fuse is only 7.5a so not enough room to straight power the lights from there.

 

The cargo lamp fuse will power side lights.
But they will not turn on and off with the rocker switch on the dash (ask me how I know)

 

Thats easy. Just use a relay.

 

Someone posted how to do it off the cargo rocker switch in the Uptopoverland thread. I’m to lazy to look back where

 

Fuse is before the dash switch.. if you tapped after the switch it would control it.

 

someone call @caribe makaira

 

The wiring after the switch isn’t enough power (ask me how I know too lol)
You gotta run a relay from one of the switch wires. I forgot which one.

 

It would trigger a relay, that's what OP is looking for.

 

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, I have heavy gauge positive and negative lead going from an auxiliary battery to a fuse block in my bed and was going to power and ground off that, and using a heavy amp relay switched on and off through the cargo light.

I was wondering if anyone had actually done it and if there any suggestions for accessing the cargo light and other ideas for the project. It just seems like a very easy way to do it for those of us who have a shell and rarely use the cargo light anymore for anything else, otherwise it’s a waste of a really good switch already installed in the dashboard.

 

what did you do...?

 

I'm a fan of wiring in my own circuits, I try to avoid any splices or piggybacks on the OEM system.
Addafuse and another switch would be my route.

 

Thanks for the tip! I found it, post number 1018:

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...pping-conus-only.599113/page-51#post-21704559

 

I agree, but it’s totally an unused circuit now, so in my case this would be a good way to do it. Besides, I’m planning on keeping my truck until just before it dies.

 

3rd GEN Added Lamps to Cargo SW

 

Thank you for the post, that looks to be very helpful! I’m curious though, will a basic five pin 12 V relay overload the hot wire going to the cargo light? that’s what Cidgel did here on step 3:

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...pping-conus-only.599113/page-51#post-21704559

It just seems like it would be so much easier to tie it’s low amp coil into the positive wire feeding the light up in the ceiling, especially for controlling lights that are mounted to the roof racks and with the power feed from my auxiliary power source and fuse box I already installed in the bed of the truck... not sure about the main advantage of what you posted in that case...

 

Hang on....the 3rd gen comes with a bed light?!

Well that's awesome. Lol

 

OK well this will be interesting, I am now planning on putting a junction box underneath my Prinsu cabrack for accessory 12 V power up on the roof (the source is a third battery I have in the bed). I will put a blue seas waterproof cigarette plug up there for powering various accessories I use outside and for my RTT, such as phone, camera and drone chargers, lights and even a diesel heater, along with a relay to run my ditch lights mounted on the sides of the rack. I will post about it here.

 

I repurposed my bed light switch to work with the LED light strips underneath my MX canopy. I also wired-in a dimmer/remote control. The stock wiring is really small gauge (likely 18-22) so I don't know that it could support high wattage lights.