Footwell lighting, i need help!

[blackSSRS]

Hey guys, wiring footwell lights in my girl friends car, its a 2003 hyundai elantra. I took off th dash and wired the lights to the power wire behind the cigarette lighter, and grounded the lights to the ground on the cigarette lighter. the lights turn on when the key is turned on, i wanted to add a switch to turn the lights off. i bought a 3 position switch with on/off/on position, the switch has 3 ends on the back of it. I hooked the power to one, the ground to the other and left the last plug on the switch with nothing on it. then when i turn key on lights work in either the on or middle switch position, but when i flip the switch to the last position (trying to turn it off, nothing hooked to the third prong on backside of switch) the fuse pops, i popped 4 fuses trying to figure it out.

so for the experts, how can i wire this without blowing a fuse and what switch should i use? guessing if i get just an on/off switch it will work fine and my problem is using the on/off/on switch. please help me!!

also the footwell lights had more than half the l.e.d.'s stop working or flickering, is this from blowing fuses or hooked up wrong?

thank you!!!!

[Ricamaro]

The on-off-on, Single Pole Double Throw (SPDT) switch provides you with two power source options - the contacts on either side. The Contact in the middle is for the object being powered. The ground is made directly from the object to a ground source, either a (usually Black) wire or directly and mechanically screwed to the metal body of the car. The SPDT Switch itself has no contact for ground.

So, you can run one wire for constant on (Acc Plug/Cig Lighter for example) on one side,
run a second wire for the Courtesy Light dimming circuit (if you know which wire it is) on the other side and your object being powered gets the middle contact. You will ground the objects negative lead to a convenient (Black) ground wire or screw to the metal body.

In your description, you only have one power source, so you would run your power wire to either side of the switch and your light to the center contact and you will ground your light to the metal or a black ground wire. This will only give you power on one side of that switch.
You can use a SPST Single Pole Single Throw switch (off - on) if you want to keep it simpler. In either case, the light gets grounded directly,
not to the switch.

[blackSSRS]

ahhhhh thank you!!!!!! so ya grounding the wire to the switch sounds like my problem!! could this be why i have some of the l.e.d.'s shorting out or flickering?
thanks so much i'm gonna take these lights back and return them for new ones and retry wiring the switch.

also re read your reply.. so i have both footwell lights grounded with a t-tap to the ground on the cig lighter, so that is good enough right and i don't need to ground them elsewhere, or is that a bad ground to use, thanks again!!!!!!

[blackSSRS]

re read again, sounds like my ground is ok, thanks again. i'm gonna run the power to the switch then power wire from lights to middle of switch. thanks again!

[Ricamaro]

Grounded with a T-Tap to the Ground (Black) Wire of your Cig Lighter is OK.

Ethically, you should not expect the seller to issue a credit or allow a return since you wired the lights incorrectly. It's not the seller's fault or a manufacturing defect that caused the LEDs to burn out - you caused them to burn out by wiring them incorrectly.
Sucks, but you should bear the cost of your mistake, not the seller or manufacturer.

I'll get off the moral soap box now.

Good luck with the revised wiring.

[Mr_Draco]

Originally Posted by blackSSRS

ahhhhh thank you!!!!!! so ya grounding the wire to the switch sounds like my problem!! could this be why i have some of the l.e.d.'s shorting out or flickering?

Ricamaro has already taken care of you but yes this is your problem. And yea doing this fried the led's, they will need replacing.

Remember when doing single pole switches you always wire them up like this.
Power source ----------- Switch ---------- light/motor ---------- ground/neutral.