Im not to sure about this one

[JSewell]

I found a LED bar today in a trash can that some kid threw out, idk y i found out it still worked

its one off of a LED blue kit but uhhh i was going to put it inside my engine compartment and i was going to attact the wires to a STOCK light that comes on when you pop the hood

i was wondering if taking out this stock light and putting the LED bar in place of it with the stripped wires would be a good idea or bad


btw what would i use to test and make sure the light is using 12volts



basically im just looking for a reply with this being a good or bad idea before i mess something up

[mroriginal]

i personally am daring and have tapped into stock lights and wires plenty of times with no problems. I have 3 neon tubes(which draw more than LED's) in place as my trunk light and no problem at all. How to test it.....ummm if you have a SG home adapter or OPTX it doesnt matter. I would try that then if you dont have one you should get one they are handy but you could try to hook it up to your battery to test it.

[Kid Morbid]

The best way to check what it's pulling is a multi meter.

I don't get what you are asking exactly though, are you wanting to see how much power it will draw so you will know if your stock wiring can handle it?

Since it's LED's I can guarentee it should be fine. If you can find out what gauge wire you are tapping into is then you can go by that as well.

[JSewell]

the guage wire the stock light bulb is using isnt too big, about the size of stock speaker wire so im pretty sure im fine there, i just really wanted to know how to test if the wire is putting out a clean 12volts so i can put the LED bar in with that stock wiring.

Also, The lightbulb im using turns on ONLY when i pop the hood completely so just to give me some peace of mind would this be an factor is surging or blowing somehow.

and finally would a 6A inline fuse be the best for this

[miraclegro]

hook it up. leds done draw nearly any power. one regular light bulb is eaxual to like 100 or more led's

just touch the wires to your batt to see if it works. if it dont then switch the polarity. if its still dark go back and find who put it in the trash and bust it over their head for getting your hopes up.

[mroriginal]

im pretty sure a 6amp would be too much because you are only powering one single LED bar.

[BumpinG-Am]

does your first post say you know it works? thats what it sounds like to me.

If you're just attaching a small LED bar, it shouldn't be a problem to splice it into stock wiring, like mroriginal said. Basically everything on a car is 12 volts, so you shouldn't worry about that, you're worried about amp flow.

the light that you're splicing it into is already on a factory fuse, so you shouldn't even need to put in another one at all. If you start blowing the stock one, check your connections and make sure nothing's grounding out (make sure you do a good job in the first place, of course) then if you need to, upgrade the 5 amp fuse to a 6 amp (or whatever, you get the idea)

[JSewell]

when i said i know how it works i meant i know for sure the LED bar would light up. I had done the battery test and it was all bueno

i was just wondering if id F up using stock wiring and no inline fuse

although i fixed it up to where i would just go when i turned all my lights on INSTEAD of coming on once i open the hood

Pics TONIGHT

[domminigan]

I see no pics.

[JSewell]

lol man its in the Pictures/Videos catagory of course

[steelhumm]

when wiring to factory wires first check the stock fuse size and note the amp rating of said fuse. then check to see that the amp rating of what you are powering with that wire isn't higher than the stock fuse size...if it falls below that rating (which an led will) then you will be fine. Note that ALL things being powered by that fuse added together must fall below the amp rating of the stock fuse, if its higher then you can go higher on the fuse...to a point. I wouldn't go from a 5a to a 30a fuse, but from a 15 to a 20 or a 25 to a 30 is fine. OEM give you about a 10a increase to play with before it gets dangerous.

[JSewell]

thanks man for the help, just so you know i did already get er set up and weird thing was, it wasn't a fuse line

i literally detached every fuse from my box and the light remained one

i put in an inline fuse with a 1A fuse just to be careful

[steelhumm]

check all your fuse boxes? Every wire (oem wire) is fused, there are no exceptions as the positive terminal of the battery goes to dist. block fuse panels and out from there...so every wire has to have a fuse attached.

Most modern vehicles have multiple fuse panels, normally one uder dash and one under hood...did you check both?

[JSewell]

Ok then, I was thinking the engine compartment panel wouldn't bother with operating small stuff such as an engine light

[mroriginal]

My car actually has 3 fuse boxes. 1 on each side of the dash and 1 under the hood.