TomLee

iTrader: (3)

Heres some tips for installing them. No pcitures or comeplete guide, just tips for future reference in case anyone needs help.

1. Wire Puddle lights in PARALLEL.

2. Most Puddle Lights will require a 1 1/4" Drill/Saw Bit. (Based on other DIY's and my own experience, seems like 1.25" is a standard size for 5led puddle lights).

3. A clothe hangar really helps when threading the wires through the firewalls and wheel wells. Just straighten, and stick thorugh openin, tape the wire too the end of the hangar and pull back out.

4. Do not gorund the puddle lights to the chasis/body, the lights will continue to stay on if you do this.

5. Splice + /- to either Footwell or Domelights. I concluded that the footwell and domelights are part of the same circuit cause when you pull the dome fuse the footwell lights go out too. I went with footwell because its way eaier to get to and hide wires.

6. BLUE/Yellow stripe is POSITIVE, Green is Earth.
(You have to gorund to this wire because of some reverse current for the dimming effect to work?)

7.When threading wires to the engine bay, use the hangar technque to thread thourgh the wheel well and wheel well fender, its a tight fit but will hid your wires nicely and wont have to worry about your wires being torn apart. The holes in the wheel welll are further in the wheel, and right on top (make sense?). They are screw size holes and tehres only like 1 or two.


Just posting this because I couldn't find any help or advice when I was doing this.

PHML

iTrader: (33)

Where da pix of the finished mod?

tom steele

thats because it a grounded switch meaning the courtesy switch is open then when the door closes it grounds its self most electronics in your car are going to be negative switch causes less noise in the electronics

[ant]

lemme add to this as i just did mine last night:

- if you go in PARALLEL with the footwell lights then the puddle lights will simply become part of the Courtesy Light circuit (footwells, dome light, door lights).

- if going in Parallel, the puddle's will simply function fully as courtesy lights e.g. theyll come on when you unlock the car, go off when you lock the car, and dim out on the timer if you just shut the door of the car and wait.

- if you want to manually switch on the puddle lights its a bit harder. the best way would be to use a relay (not in the kit) to enable you to have the puddle lights wired into the footwell lights and therefore be part of the courtesy light circuit, but then provide them with another independant permanent positive supply along with an indepedant ground. This will then go to the switch and allow you to turn them on and off independantly of the Courtesy lights. This is what the relay enables you to do.

- if you dont have a relay and are in a hurry (like i was) the alternative is to wire the puddle lights each side in SERIES. This means you're effectively sharing the power into each footwell light circuit with the puddle lights.

- if you go in Series, you then can run a negative from each footwell light (with puddles wired in) onto one side of the switch, and then a direct ground to the other side. This means when you turn them on they'll come on independantly of the other courtesy lights (disables the others when theyre manually switched on).

- The issue with doing them in series in the above way is the sharing power part. this means when doing it this way that when they are functioning as part of the courtesy light circuit, the puddle lights are only lighting up around 70-80% brightness, and the footwell lights are more like 30-40% brightness. I didnt mind this cause footwell lights are kinda useless, and when hopping in and out of the car 70-80% puddlelight brightness is fine for me. They work 100% when manually on for photos etc.

burgy

^true, but if your foot well lights are LED also, the lower amount of power isn't an issue since the efficiency of LED's is sooo much greater. Any pics of this yet?