How to connect a brake light strip to my AC/DC?

[Ross Hamilton]

Hi everyone,

I've got a nicely mounted strip of red LEDs which I salvaged from my car when I needed to replace the cracked plastic housing it sat behind - you had to buy the entire unit, so I ended up with this spare:

... and I've decided that if I make it light up at the same time as the "right side flasher" (number 31) it will look good:



Apparently "right side flasher" is a "low current coil" which must make sense to someone:



Anyway, it tracks back to a couple of the lines going to J6 on the driver board:



If I hold my LED strip wires against the right parts of this connector it seems to work nicely so I'd like to work out a way to connect it permanently...

So my big question is, what's the best way to piggy back this into the wiring harness? Is there some kind of a splitter connector I should splice in to the wiring, or a Y connector to allow me to go straight onto J6. Or a better way of doing it?

I'd prefer it not to look like a bit of a hack job when I'm finished. Any tips?

Thanks,
Ross

 

[Pick Holder]

The trigger is always 0v, but you need to find +12v DC to feed directly to the strip.

Also I would connect it up to a power supply first, and measure (with the meter in series and set to amps) how much current it draws.

Think these are going to be bright - where are you going to connect them ?

 

[Ross Hamilton]

The trigger is always 0v, but you need to find +12v DC to feed directly to the strip. [....] Think these are going to be bright - where are you going to connect them ?

I'm fine with the electrics - as I say it works fine if I hold the connectors in the right places. I'm just curious about suggestions for the tidiest way to physically make the connections without making the machine looked hacked about.

I'm just planning to mount the light behind the "AC/DC" name in the translight, so it illuminates from time to time. It looks great when held there, just need to work out a metal bracket to hold it in the right place.

 

[Kman]

If you're ok with electrics and confident the LED strip doesn't prejudice the circuit you're adding it to, then I reckon it depends on your soldering skills if you want to splice into the harness. Perfectly possibly to do a neat job and cover with shrink wrap. I'd probably splice in a waterproof push fit clip connector wire set (typical in cars) which would allow you to easily disconnect the item in future. Then obviously run the wire (I don't know the AC/DC pin) in the best fit way back from the LED strip. Obviously you could use WAGO connectors instead but less neat imho. A lot of mods use croc connectors to bare terminals but this doesn't seem relevant from what you've said.

 

[Kman]

You may also want to consider adding an in line fuse to help protect the circuit from failure in the LED strip. Possibly OTT but I mention it as it's something I'd consider.