I wanted an LED light strip on the rear hatch. Seems simple right?
Nothing I do is simple. It had to be white and red LED’s, and the white light needed to be pleasant. Not a a damn bluish 6K interrogation light like some are selling as a “kit” for the JL with a hokey remote control.
I wanted something with RGB (deleting the G and B) at about 3.5K to 4K. Off to Super Bright LED’s I went...
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Here’s the lights I ordered. I have some left over for future projects
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I also ordered a nice extrusion from them to mount the light for a finished look. And a small 3 position switch. These lights are triggered off the ground so that made wiring them a snap.
This was also a good time to add an extra skookum USB port in the cargo area, a Blue Sea 4.8 amp dual USB right next to the Blue Sea power port that runs the Engel. Charging a tablet on a 1 amp USB sucks, so this should fix that
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12 ga wiring, copious heat shrink and marine grade terminals.
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On the lighting, I hid the switch where it will be out of the way, with no chance of inadvertent activation or dead battery. No LED. Simple. Total parasitic draw of the 2 Blue Sea ports and this switch is around 3 mA. Acceptable given the huge benefits.
Back inside the rear driver’s side panel, wiring is 100% squared away. I added spade terminals inline in case I ever want to take the top off. Several colors of heat shrink tubing denote the LED strip’s OEM brown to my black extension to hot wire from the light strip. Red and white are for their corresponding light switches. Blue is common ground which activates the lights. I use orange zip ties as bread crumbs, they identify anything I’ve added. Everything is armored and chafe proof...
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Switch in it’s discrete location just inside the hatch.
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Red or white lighting now available at the rear tailgate area for cooking etc. Finis.
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