Auxiliary Interior Rear lighting. TJ 97-02 (Possibly + 03-06)

#1
I was bored (didn't have time to start any of the real projects i had laying around) so i decided to look into adding some extra lighting to the rear of the jeep, Mainly to help light the entry point at the tailgate area. This is what i came up with.
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It uses the common Amazon Led strip lighting and some 1/8 thick ABS plastic.

I first cut a piece of plastic sheet to ~ .75 x 23.25. Table saw makes this super slick.
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The notch in the hard top is rounded in the ends so i took the plastic over to the Belt sander to radius it.
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Then I cut two pieces of the LED Strip 5 Segments long and attached them to the ABS. I left room in the middle and the ends for a mounting screw to go.
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Soldered up the two strips and added a pigtail to do the interfacing with the jeep wiring. Also did a quick test to see what the current draw was on this strip. Measured ~.28 Amps @ 13.81vdc.


Back to the jeep i go. As im mounting this strip, using half inch self taping screws, it dawns on me that it would me nice to have control of this led separately but also have it operate in tandem with the dome lights. After mounting and testing the light output i do some quick goggling for a wiring diagram for the hard top.. Man i would be nice to have a constant 12v feed in that plug, turns out there was. Pin 8 Pink/White.
http://williamsonwebsolutions.com/share/?v=plugpins0.jpg
After some quick Thinking. I decide i want to put a override in the back of the jeep to power just this LED on but still have it operate with the domes this is what i came up with.
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It uses a 1N4001 or 1N4007 diode to isolate the grounds to keep all the dome lights from being activated when the rear toggle is switched on. You can see the "harness" I built, I heat shrinked it and fished it through the hardtop. Final Product.
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Couple shot with various combinations of lighting.
Dome and LED
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Dome
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LED
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Next task is going to be to convert all of the interior to LED I may possibly do a bi-color setup in the over heads for RED/White for night visibility. Also considering how i could add a strip of these to the bottom of the window so when its up you would have ample light be hide the jeep to work/cook/etc.
 
#5
Nice. I like that. Probably should do something similar on the rover.

One thing to consider is maybe replacing the dome light with an LED light of the same temp.
 
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