LED Truck Bed Lighting

[chicken fried]

very nice

[hound dog]

Trouble?? I tried this and my positive wire gets so hot u can hardly touch it. Is that normal.
I wired a 30amp fuse straight to the positive terminal of the battery and grounded the other wire. Ran the ground and hot(positive) to a switch. Then the acc. Wire to the led's from the switch, and the ground(negative) to the negative of the led's. yea it works, but could start a campfire with it.

[Mike D]

What size wire did you use?

[Punkin]

Just ordered my LED's, this is a great idea.

[hound dog]

I used 16gauge wire and ran it from battery to bed of truck.

[benwhite34]

Nice. I oRdered my led strip Saturday

[wellingtontx]

I got the LED strip lighting as well and was going to use 16ga as well. Is that too thin ? Looks like same size wire for tail lights.

My problem has been trying to find an actual 12V wire at the tail lights or trailer hitch.

I bought my lights off of www.hitlights.com

[Jethro80]

Awesome project they should do this from the factory

[wellingtontx]

I heard this or something very similar would be an option on some future models.

[kathy82]

I did this install over the weekend. For the most part anyway.The brightness of the LEDs in the bed makes it so I can't tell that the cargo light is on. In fact, with the cargo light off the LEDs are brighter because the cargo light isn't taking away some of the available current.

[gekko man]

We sell a led light (8 led diodes) with a motion sensor switch. It is rechargeable (usb cable) so you do not need to have a 12 volt system. It is bright and it about 3" x 4" and about 3/8" in height.

It has a plate that screw mounts and uses a key hole and stand off that connects the light to the plate.

I am not sure of the lumens but it is super bright!

[flywise]

Now that's going to be pretty handy

[randal]

If you order a long strip can you just cut what you need or do you have to cap one end somehow??

[Bill's Unlimited]

Yes you can cut it every 3rd LED. I put a dab of caulk on the end just to be safe. I have several write ups on LED lighting out here. This post and a few others got me hooked on them...

[bar2hunter]

Did a trial run with some cheap lights I had from previous project. Pretty much did exactly what big_smith did...
I learned: don't tuck lights under the rail because less light floods the bed. Otherwise, they work great and I'm excited to do the real deal...