How to Wire Footwell Lighting

[skuttduck]

Originally Posted by EliteCZM523

Just did this Install, and didnt want to have the footwell lights running off the Dome light. I wanted them to be on at the same time as the rest of the Ambient Lighting in the car. After some testing/prodding/poking with a Volt-Meter and found a wire that works perfectly!!




The above wire is located behind the Driver's Side kick panel, and is yellow. To get to it you will need to open the door, and remove the panel that covers the fuse box. Then you will see that there is a little blue tab that holds the kick panel in place, push it up to unlock it and the rest is just held in with plastic pop pins. If you need me to post pics of the location i will!

Also, the lights now come on when you open the drivers side door, and turn off the same way the dome light does (theater dimming). They also turn on whenever the headlights are on!! I wired up a rocker switch, which i hid in the glove box to have the ability to turn them off completely, on all the time, or on with the rest of the ABL.

The yellow wire is actually the instrument panel lighting circuit. The only difference between it and the ambient lighting is that you can't turn off your lighting completely. If you dim the lights, the ambient lighting will be off but the rest of the IP lighting will be on at the dimest level.

Another good location is the traction control switch.

[1badtie]

ok jus got the kit in from aac and im a little confused i plan on jus running it with the dome light wire (the gray one) so they fade on and off but anyways it came with 2 power inverters so heres my question do i jus run both inverters off off the same gray wire then ground? or do i only need one inverter?

[1badtie]

and has anyone had a problem with kicking the lights under the footwell it seems like theyd be easy to break? but idk i havnt really got under there to look yet

[skuttduck]

Originally Posted by 1badtie

and has anyone had a problem with kicking the lights under the footwell it seems like theyd be easy to break? but idk i havnt really got under there to look yet

My footwell lighting consists of using the ambient door lights in the stock holes, no way you can kick them if you do that.

[BIGK909]

How long were your wires for the light strips? mine (that came with the lights) are about 6" long and im guessing thats too short.. are they too short, and how would i go about getting wires?

[tonyfred]

The wires on mine were also short. I bought some auto wire at Autozone and spliced some extra length in. Use electrical tape to secure the connection.

[BIGK909]

ok thanks. How many wires did u end up with in the end? I have two right now, but im just not sure exactly how to wire it. Does one wire go from one light strip to another and then another wire from the light strip to the grey wire? if this is right, i then need another wire to ground it? sorry i have no knowledge in wiring at all

[1badtie]

are yall usiing two converters for both tubes or jus running them both off of 1?

[qbert48]

Originally Posted by 1badtie

and has anyone had a problem with kicking the lights under the footwell it seems like theyd be easy to break? but idk i havnt really got under there to look yet

i kicked mine and broke it now i have AAC's new color leds they seem to stay out of the way better

[13lade]

Ive tried several different options for footwells, including tube, individual LEDs, and led strips. BY FAR the best option for placement, light quality, and ease of installation has been the light strips. I used the red 12-led strips from xenithxenons, but I also tried the blue and the white but since I have the IOM interior, the red matched perfectly.

There is no worrying about kicking or breaking anything with these, and placement is by far the easiest since they are flexible and have 3m tape already applied to them.

[bigsquirrel]

I'm pretty happy with the abl colored led strip from aac.

[Avalnch]

As luck would have it, I was doing some fix'er up jobs around the house and one of them was to install new floor transition mouldings on some of the room door thresholds. I went to the Home Depot and picked up this plastic channel that is used to hold down the "T" shaped piece of floor moulding.

After the job was done, I had some extra lengths of the plastic channel and I thought, "This would be perfect for holding the LED foot well light strips" (that I just received from AAC). Haven't installed the strips yet, but have a look at these pics. The strip fits perfectly within the channel and it will be easy to zap strap them on to the underside of the dash where there are convenient holes. The passenger side is especially helpful cause there isn't a good flat surface for the light strips to be glued to. The footwell strips have 3M double sided sticky on it.







These plastic channels come in 36" lengths.

[Johnny1]

It just seems a shame that paying that much for such a beautiful car with such nice looking interior and GM was to cheap to put foot well lighting in them. Maybe in the future. Even my 2007 Canyon SLT came with foot well lighting.

[1badtie]

so im using both inverters for the two footweel ccfl tubes from aac.....since im using both converters i will have to use two t taps to tap into the gray domelight wire this will work right?