Interior Neon wiring
May-23rd-2003, 09:55 AM
#1
Protege Newbie
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 5
Interior Neon wiring
I purchased some 10 inch neon tubes and I have no clue how to wire them. I mean... I know how to connect and mount them... but where do I wire them too? Any help would be greatly appreciated... thanks.
May-25th-2003, 09:44 PM
#4
Smoking or Non-Smoking???
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Philly
Posts: 731
you'd be suprised of the current draw a neon light can take. i used to have a chart on the damn thing, but my take, 2, no more than two. the cigarette lighter (if wired like first gen protege's) can handle 4 neons at a shot without blowing anything, it's just everything gets hot... transformers, wires, and the casings. just realize your radio is in the same circuit as cigarette lighter, so if you see a spark and your radio doesn't work, replace the fuse for the cig lighter and radio in the fuse panel under your dash. just another thing to keep in mind, your cigarette lighter doesn't work with the ignition off, however during the day, if your car is running, it will run the neons as well. you may want to wire them to a switch as it's not exactly recommended to have your neons on and wired all the time, let alone if you get pulled over... not exactly illegal in most states, just looked down upon. besides, neon lights will do you NOTHING during the daylight, so a switch would be an excellent idea. have fun and good luck.
peace
ps. where are you mounting your neons? just curious
peace
ps. where are you mounting your neons? just curious
Last edited by demoninvictus; May-26th-2003 at 03:47 AM.
May-26th-2003, 02:33 PM
#5
Protege Enthusiast
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: alexandria , VA
Posts: 143
I wired mine straight to the battery.... just ran a inline fuse. and voila. neons have a very low draw....if you buy streetglow.. because they have built in transformers, which takes the low draw and boosts it to the amount the neon needs. I have 2 . 20" streetglow neons , under my dash, and im running them both on like a 4 amp fuse......no probs. they dont heat up either.
May-29th-2003, 10:41 PM
#7
Registered User
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Dallas, Tx
Posts: 125
in car neons
I wired mine on the little glo ring around the cigarette lighter. It comes on when you turn on your parking lights and/or headlights. Flip of the head light switch and you have instant interior neons.
Just pull the power clip behind the ring and cut it off. When you do, cut it as close to the plastic connector as you can. Then wire the red wire to the power side of the glo ring, and the negative, black, side to the other wire.
I have a 323, and I hung the neons in the back windows, at the base of the window. I then ran the wire thru the fender wall and thru each door channel up to the front. To put it into the channel, unscrew the 4 or 5 screws holding the door sill in place. Then run the wire to the front and wire it in. Always wire your ground first b/c you should always have a ground for power.
An inline fuse is an excellent idea if you go to direct continuous power. If you use something in the car that has a switch from the factory then most likely you are alredy routed through a fue in the fuse box.
if you need more help lemme know, I can try to take some pics tommrow (Friday)
Good Luck!
Just pull the power clip behind the ring and cut it off. When you do, cut it as close to the plastic connector as you can. Then wire the red wire to the power side of the glo ring, and the negative, black, side to the other wire.
I have a 323, and I hung the neons in the back windows, at the base of the window. I then ran the wire thru the fender wall and thru each door channel up to the front. To put it into the channel, unscrew the 4 or 5 screws holding the door sill in place. Then run the wire to the front and wire it in. Always wire your ground first b/c you should always have a ground for power.
An inline fuse is an excellent idea if you go to direct continuous power. If you use something in the car that has a switch from the factory then most likely you are alredy routed through a fue in the fuse box.
if you need more help lemme know, I can try to take some pics tommrow (Friday)
Good Luck!
June-11th-2003, 03:11 AM
#10
Smoking or Non-Smoking???
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Philly
Posts: 731
four black lights split off the cigarette lighter was hot to the touch in my car. my general conscensus is this, you're gonna install your neons, you'll spend a half an hour getting JUST how you want it on each tube you install, hook the **** up and get it to work...and you're fine until somewhere down the line, there's a short in your wiring, you blow a fuse, you're dumbass friend kicks the thing and cracks it on accident.. or eventually, and it does happen, the neon light just simply burns out entirely and doesn't want to light up anymore.
my suggestion if you're comfortable in running everything off your cig lighter (i'd say 2 or more neons), get a 4 to 1 cigarette lighter splitter, cut the leads off the cigarette adapter and hard wire the positive and negative directly to your car lighter or whatnot. if it's a fused power source, even better. then install your neons where you want them, route the wires behind your console behind the radio or under your drivers seat where the splitter is wired to (with some slack to allow for easy changing of neons). plug the suckers in directly into the splitter and you're in business. only down fall with doing this and not hard wiring, a simple tug on the wire or minor adjustment can make the leads disconnect in the splitter (ie the plug comes out easily on some brands of neons and splitters). the upside is that you're tied directly into the fuse box, and included in each neon's cigarette adapter is a fuse... so you can't go wrong. also, if one of your neons give out, it's easy as hell to swap it out with a new one and it allows some more flexibility and minimizes the posibility of a short.
and additionally, if you go and hardwire your neons to your cigarette lighter, see a spark or notice that your radio doesn't work, don't go crying or panicing, replace your fuse. easiest way to avoid this is to wire everything correctly and tightly, and also pulling the fuse to your cig lighter/radio helps, cuts the current while you're wiring and provides a nice window of safety. if you plug a new fuse in only to find out that it blew, you radio doesn't work, or your neons don't work at all, look at your wiring.
peace
my suggestion if you're comfortable in running everything off your cig lighter (i'd say 2 or more neons), get a 4 to 1 cigarette lighter splitter, cut the leads off the cigarette adapter and hard wire the positive and negative directly to your car lighter or whatnot. if it's a fused power source, even better. then install your neons where you want them, route the wires behind your console behind the radio or under your drivers seat where the splitter is wired to (with some slack to allow for easy changing of neons). plug the suckers in directly into the splitter and you're in business. only down fall with doing this and not hard wiring, a simple tug on the wire or minor adjustment can make the leads disconnect in the splitter (ie the plug comes out easily on some brands of neons and splitters). the upside is that you're tied directly into the fuse box, and included in each neon's cigarette adapter is a fuse... so you can't go wrong. also, if one of your neons give out, it's easy as hell to swap it out with a new one and it allows some more flexibility and minimizes the posibility of a short.
and additionally, if you go and hardwire your neons to your cigarette lighter, see a spark or notice that your radio doesn't work, don't go crying or panicing, replace your fuse. easiest way to avoid this is to wire everything correctly and tightly, and also pulling the fuse to your cig lighter/radio helps, cuts the current while you're wiring and provides a nice window of safety. if you plug a new fuse in only to find out that it blew, you radio doesn't work, or your neons don't work at all, look at your wiring.
peace
June-18th-2003, 06:35 PM
#11
Honda Burninator
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Posts: 168
Neons
I have to start by saying that my friend and I took a long time to perfect this but here it goes.
Most of th neons that you buy have a cigarette lighter attachement (at least the ones that are meant for inside the car, bought at Walmart). What we did was buy one of the lighter spilters that you can also buy there. It also has an LED so It lights up as well. This now turns the cigarette lighter into two plugs.
For the front grill lights that yyou see at the bottom of the email, I cut the lighter attachment off and connected the two together (make sure you know where the transformer is on the noen as you need to still have it attached and only that transformer will work for that one light). So in the case of the two 36" lights the transformer was near the lights themselves and so the wires were spliced together and a single wire was threaded along the side of the engine bay into a hole that is right near the drivers feet. The cigarette lighter attachment was then added to this wire and plugged into the splitter. The two lights I have on the inside under dash were installed by having one plug into the second outlet and the other hard wired (while still having the transformer attached) to the inside of the spilter box. The pos to the pos terminal and the neg to the neg terminal. This spilter box also has individual buttons to turn the plugs on and off so it can be plugged in without the lights being on.
As many have stated this device heats up. What's the logical thing to do if something gets hot? Cool it down. We cut a hole in the top[ of the spiltter and attached a small computer (or something) fan and put a plastic pipe around it for safety. Holes were drilled on the bottom and viola, the device is cooled unbelievably.
I will post pics as soon as I can but I do not have thm right now.
Most of th neons that you buy have a cigarette lighter attachement (at least the ones that are meant for inside the car, bought at Walmart). What we did was buy one of the lighter spilters that you can also buy there. It also has an LED so It lights up as well. This now turns the cigarette lighter into two plugs.
For the front grill lights that yyou see at the bottom of the email, I cut the lighter attachment off and connected the two together (make sure you know where the transformer is on the noen as you need to still have it attached and only that transformer will work for that one light). So in the case of the two 36" lights the transformer was near the lights themselves and so the wires were spliced together and a single wire was threaded along the side of the engine bay into a hole that is right near the drivers feet. The cigarette lighter attachment was then added to this wire and plugged into the splitter. The two lights I have on the inside under dash were installed by having one plug into the second outlet and the other hard wired (while still having the transformer attached) to the inside of the spilter box. The pos to the pos terminal and the neg to the neg terminal. This spilter box also has individual buttons to turn the plugs on and off so it can be plugged in without the lights being on.
As many have stated this device heats up. What's the logical thing to do if something gets hot? Cool it down. We cut a hole in the top[ of the spiltter and attached a small computer (or something) fan and put a plastic pipe around it for safety. Holes were drilled on the bottom and viola, the device is cooled unbelievably.
I will post pics as soon as I can but I do not have thm right now.
June-18th-2003, 06:59 PM
#12
Honda Burninator
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Posts: 168
other lights and a cool switch
Now I should say that you should have a basic knowledge of electricity and circuitry before ripping apart all your wires in the back of your car, and neons aren't cheap either.
Now in regards to more lights in the back. I also have those two front wiper lights along with two base sensitive 9" neons, LED fan, and light strings.
The positive wire from the two base sensitive lights and the string lights was wired to the positive wire from the license plate lights (found by following the RED or COLORED wire through the trunk lid and to the side of the truck for easier installing). This wire was cut and the ends were attached to the positive wire that was connected to the lights. (so three coloured wired all connected with a plastic twisty connector). The negative wire from all the lights was run out of the truck and down th side of the inside of the car under the plastic door guards, under the drivers seat and into the center consol (which is removed by unscrewing the two side screws and unsnapping the front, then lifted off). The negative wire was then soldered onto the switch and another was soldered on to the other side and the other end of that wire was screwed onto any metal part inside the console that has a screw in it (many places).
The two front wiper lights and the LED fan had the negative (or black) wire attached to the switch the same way but th positive was threaded into the driver's side fuse box. Here we stripped a good inch of it, removed the AC fuse and threaded it into th hole. The fuse was then put back into place.
This install will mean that when you flick the switch the fan and front lights will turn on anytime. When you have your head lights on (which is when the license lights come on) and the switch turned one everything will be lit up.
Like I said this took a little while and we still have more lights to put in. The main thing is not to steal too much power from one source because this will a) screw up the car/fuse/whatever it is connected to, and/or b) blow your light up that you just bought, or my personal fav. c) start the car on fire.
Again I will try to post some pics tonight for visual aid. This is a very clean install and on my 98 LX there are actually two "pop-out" pieces of plastic right beside the Ebrake to drill a hole into and put the switch into. looks awesome!
Email me at tinymazdaspeed@hotmail.com for more info
Now in regards to more lights in the back. I also have those two front wiper lights along with two base sensitive 9" neons, LED fan, and light strings.
The positive wire from the two base sensitive lights and the string lights was wired to the positive wire from the license plate lights (found by following the RED or COLORED wire through the trunk lid and to the side of the truck for easier installing). This wire was cut and the ends were attached to the positive wire that was connected to the lights. (so three coloured wired all connected with a plastic twisty connector). The negative wire from all the lights was run out of the truck and down th side of the inside of the car under the plastic door guards, under the drivers seat and into the center consol (which is removed by unscrewing the two side screws and unsnapping the front, then lifted off). The negative wire was then soldered onto the switch and another was soldered on to the other side and the other end of that wire was screwed onto any metal part inside the console that has a screw in it (many places).
The two front wiper lights and the LED fan had the negative (or black) wire attached to the switch the same way but th positive was threaded into the driver's side fuse box. Here we stripped a good inch of it, removed the AC fuse and threaded it into th hole. The fuse was then put back into place.
This install will mean that when you flick the switch the fan and front lights will turn on anytime. When you have your head lights on (which is when the license lights come on) and the switch turned one everything will be lit up.
Like I said this took a little while and we still have more lights to put in. The main thing is not to steal too much power from one source because this will a) screw up the car/fuse/whatever it is connected to, and/or b) blow your light up that you just bought, or my personal fav. c) start the car on fire.
Again I will try to post some pics tonight for visual aid. This is a very clean install and on my 98 LX there are actually two "pop-out" pieces of plastic right beside the Ebrake to drill a hole into and put the switch into. looks awesome!
Email me at tinymazdaspeed@hotmail.com for more info
Cigarette Lighter
June-29th-2004, 11:22 AM
#15
Registered User
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: Clermont.FL
Posts: 273
man killin the guy that dosent know what hes doing.....i think drill a hole in the fire wall put your power wire(red) right to the battery and find a good ground(black)and hooka switch up like on the 02 dx pro they have swiches already there for what ever you want so u can go right from those swiches but if you dont have that you can go out and buy a 12v swich(so it dont get hot when power is going through it i learned the hard way)get a 12 volt swich its a good idea then hook it all up where ever you want the lights then your all set bling bling lights!!!!
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