Hi all,

I bought LED strips and mounted them underneath the dash, near were your feet are when sitting.. See www.2003civicmods.blogspot.com for pictures..

What i did was i wired them directly to the fuse box. I took out the fuse for the DRL's stuck them in there and they are working now. But i was told that that was not really the way to do that.. That there is no really positive and negative terminal in the fuse box.. Why it's working i don't know..

When i have my handbrake on they are dim and once i put the brake down it brightens up.. then while driving it goes dim then bright.. not in a blinking kind of way but it does this say every 5 mins..

Also, i did not put any resistors or whatever..

Thanks,

 

LED strips usually have the resistors already in. Which LED strips are they?

So you wired them to the DRLs so that they would only be on when the car's on, right?
Well, an easier method would be to splice into the cigarette lighter's 12V wire.
This would also be fused since the cigarette lighter is already fused.
This is what I recommend, I did it on my old 93 Civic. Just before you do this, make sure that your cigarette lighter is only getting electricity when the car is on. A way to check this would be to plug a cell phone charger into it and see if it works while the car is off. If your phone won't charge, then the 12V plug will work for the LEDs because they will only be on when the key is turned to on.

 

i don't have the link to ebay anymore for the LED's.. not sure if they already have resistors in it.. but i remember it did not say that it still needs a resistor.. it just said 12v source..

not also sure if i wired it correctly to drl's.. people are saying that the positive should be fuse box then negative to chasis of car.. why its turning on when i have both wires in the fusebox is a mystery to me.. haha.

cig. lighter is a great idea!!! i just learned how to open my center console... i had to put the ipod adapter.. after a long time of searching how to do it.. finally did.:-) i think i'll try that one instead!!:-)

 

because if you have the power/ground wire inplace of the fuse for the DRL then the power wire is on the power side and the ground wire you have on the wire going to the lights. its only working due to the ground feedback.

for the ground simply find a metal brace under the dash that has a bolt or screw some where under there and hook the black ground wire to it.

and for the red power wire the easiest choice would be hook up the power wire to the cigerate lighter wire harness. then you wont have to fuse the wire because the cig lighter is already fused in the fuse box. only downfall is you have to take off the lower trim panels on drivers and passenger side to remove the cig lighter plug trim panel to get to the wires off the cig lighter on the back.

but if you dont want to remove all those panels then find a already empty slot on the fuse box that is only powered with the ignition or accessory and hook up the red power wire to it.there is about 3-5 male spade open terminals all in arow above the fuses... simply use a female spade terminal crimped onto the power wire for the lights. downfall will be the lights will always be ON with the key. unless you hook a switch between the power wire and fuse box.
BUT if you have them wired up to the fuse box then YOU NEED A INLINE FUSE on the power wire right off of the fuse box. YOU MUST USE ONE and put a small 2.5amp fuse in the fuse holder. this way if your power wire EVER shorts out on anything metal under the dash the fuse will blow BEFORE your car catches on fire and your car turns into a BBQ PIT!

im more of a fan from www.oznium.com for my lighting extras. there led strips rule!

 

remove it from your DRLs RIGHT NOW!!!! your lucky you havent brunt out your DRL module already ...... alot of times they are negative voltage ..... they rest at 12 volts but when turned on the drop to zero volts..... do what addiction said and hook them up to a ignition or acc.... your gonna be bummed if you burn out your $300 module ....

 

WHAT!?!?!?! I will remove them right away! i didn't know that... my drl's are actually not working because i installed an hid kit.. i don't have the high beam.. maybe that's why it hasn't blown yet.... whew... i also do have a switch.. i hid it underneath the steering wheel..

And its perfect timing, i will install the usb cable to my deck so i have to take apart na dash anyways..:-) perfect timing.:-) thanks guys!!! appreciate it!

 

good luck with the wiring, i hope everything works out as planned

 

Just do what addiction said, ground the LEDs separately. The plus lead of the LEDs can go to any fuse that is on when the lights are on, such as the tail lights. You should not use the DRL circuit because as you pulled the fuse out to kill the DRL, you now have no fuse protection for the LEDs either.

Make sure to connect it to the "downstream" end of the fuse so should your LEDs short out, the fuse will blow instead of setting the car on fire. To detect which end of the fuse is which, take the fuse out of the box and note that only one of the two fuse socket pins will still be live. Use the other one.

 

you where actually using the LEDS in series (as the fuse), by connecting it in the two fuse holes, defenatly change that, thats why they where going dim and bright, depending if you had the handbrake on or off, they had either direct contact with ground, or going threw other components of your DRLs. I have mine on a relay with my illumination wire, so when I turn on my headlights, they also turn on.