Wiring Neon Lights

[Try2CatchMike]

I went up to the store today and bought 4 neon tubes. Id like to hook them under the front dash and under the front seats. Im looking to do this very tastefully and not some cheapo job and im wondering how can I wire them up to my battery? And where do I sneak the wires through so they cant be seen. Atm only 1 hooks in thru the cigarette lighter and it looks crappy with tthe wires showing. Thanks for any info you can give me (im car n00b). =)

 

[Bill Kemp]

Check this out in the FAQs. http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=101422

 

[Try2CatchMike]

yea i saw that but I didnt understand a few things.
1. Whats an "Inline Fuse" is that already something wired in my car for regular lights or something I need to buy?
2. What is an "ACC" and do I need to buy one?
3. I have the Optic neons, their are 2 wires going from the neon to the cigarrete plug in peice. One is white one is brownish. How do I know which is which?

Thanks for any help you can give me im still learning. Here is the picture of the "Inline Fuse" and "Acc" im talking about.

 

[Glowin97x]

The Inline fuse is a fuse block that you can buy at an auto parts store. It will pop if you have a short in the wire or something. It's a safety feature, so that you dont start a fire. You should choose a fuse that a little above the draw. If you have 4 neons (each neon is about .5 amps) go for a 10amp fuse so you have some room to expand.

The "ACC" is just the terminal on the switch one will say supply volts (power to the switch) one will say ACC which is the terminal that you hook the positive wire on the neon to.

 

[huskyfan23]

Do you have a multimeter? You can plug a strobe in and black to one wire, red to the other to find which colors do what. You'll need to cut off the cigarette plug end when you wire it up (probably knew that). You can also just do a guess and check. Wiring backwards won't have any ill effects.

 

[Try2CatchMike]

Thx for the info guys. I would like to run the wires under the carpet and thru somekind of hole into the engine bay and wire them up with the battery. Is their anyway to hide the wires and get them thru into the engine bay?

 

[huskyfan23]

Why do you want them in the engine bay? To go straight to the battery? I'd splice off a constant 12v wire. There's a grommit behind the e-brake that you can go through to get into the engine bay.

 

[thewishkah]

i dont use the tubes but i have the neon string tube around my dash which is wired to my headlight switch with a kill switch in the line so i can have my headlights on and the neon on or off also with it to the headlight switch i can dim the neons like the display lights

 

[Glowin97x]

^Bad idea, say your driving down the road and you blow that fuse, now your headlights dont work. Its not hard to set up a extra circuit. It may be a little more effort, but to me, its worth knowing im not going to accidentally fry the stock (read: expensive) Harness. Sure ok, maybe one tube here some string ect is probably not going to be a problem. Once you expand a little, id definalty go the other route. Ive blown my fuse more times than I can count rewiring my rats nest and im very glad that its a seperate fused circuit.

 

[thewishkah]

i probably should have mentioned the inline fuse lol sorry