I am planning on putting some LED strips under the dash to light up my floor board area. I already have the strips, but can't decide where the best place to wire them would be. I know someone on one of these posting used something called an "add a circuit" that plugged in like a fuse I believe. Can anyone give me more info on that. I would like to use something like that then connect a switch to turn them on and off. Thanks

 

If you are going to add a switch, why not just tap into the wire at the back of the cigarette lighter/power jack..... I think there are also 12 volt taps available at the fuse location behind the passenger side console kick panel (same general area as the lighter socket.)

 

I would like to go with the fuse box option, any idea on when number I should tap into, and what is the easiest way to do that?

 

Just look at the descriptions on the fuse box cover, choose one that is switched. Fuse taps are available at every auto parts store. If you want them to work with the dash lights, just pop the dimmer out of the waterfall and use the output from it.

 

What I did in my car was give them all constant power from the fat red wire in the interior fuse panel, then connected the grounds to the domelight wire. That way, when a door is opened, they come on. I put the LED strips under the dash, and under the rear of the front seats. That way I can see all the crap I drop, when I'm vacuuming the car at night.

 

here's what I call a "comprehensive information"!
Nice work.
The only vague term to me - "dome supervision." What is it?

 

I'm a newbie. Are the fat red wires for the LEDs? I thought that all that was needed was a positive and a negative?

 

I just used the power slot on the diagnostic port under the dash and ran the ground to a nice chassis ground and wired it to a nice small round led switch installed into the bottom of the waterfall.

 

Here's what I did and it works like a charm.

We have a 2010 HHR w/sunroof... this is her car and she wanted some pink/Fuchsia lights under the glove box and steering wheel.

Autozone has some by Alpena called MAX LEDs, they also make Flex LEDs but the MAX ones are much brighter. They come in Red, Green, Fuchsia, White.

1 - pull off the dome light w/sunroof controls, just pull and it will pop off.
2 - The only wires I could find to tap into that would mimic the Courtesy light actions was the Black (power) and Yellow (ground) going directly into the bulbs of the dome light. All the other taps I tried were just ON all the time.
3 - I used a couple posi-taps to connect a wire to the black and to the yellow (must used the two wires from one dome light).
4 - I popped off the little oval plastic 'AIRBAG' cover on the right side pillar (I think that's what it's called).. Then used a torx bit to unscrew then pop off the plastic cover.
5 - I carefully ran a coat hanger along the headliner until I could see it in the pillar.. Once I did, I taped a couple wires the the other end and pulled it through.
6 - Now that the wire is in the pillar area, you can fish it downward to the rear glove box area. At this point, you have the wires to hook lights to and they will turn on and fade off just like the courtesy lights.

Here's a quick pic with the LED strips just taped on w/blue tape to see how they look. They don't look too pink, LOL.. I wanted red since the car is red but my opinion is apparently not important..

Anyway, I did a lot of searching and couldn't find a nice wiring to tap into in the fuse area for the courtesy function, lots of power options but not what I was looking for.

Hope this helps if anyone else is thinking about this.

 

fabulous Mellow simply fabulous, you have learned , the opinion of the installer,(you) does not reflect the opinion of the person who drives the car (her), so endth the lesson