Ok...so I have (or my wife has so I should say) an 05 xB and I'm installing 16 aftermarket LEDs from Japan or something. They're 3.4 volts each, putting out about 18 mA, running in groups of 2 to a 330 resistor. I've tapped into the OEM LED powersource for the gear shifter and here's my problem...

I grounded the rocker switch, then hooked up the negative and then the hot...and blew the 10 amp fuse...I talked to the service guy at Toyota and he said that if I upped my fuse to a 15 or 20 amp fuse that I could burn out my wires...is this possible??? A 15 amp fuse won't hold it, but a 20 will, and my interior lights are good as long as I keep the 20 in and run the LEDs...I just need to know if there's a.) another source to tap into, or b.) keep the higher amped fuse in.

I don't want to kill my wife's car...I'll be KILLED if I kill it....HELP!!!!!!

 

I'd have to agree with the Toyota service guy, upping the fuse from 10amps to 20amps may not hurt your wires right now but over time they would start to degrade. This is because the wire gauge(the physical size of the wire) is probably to small too handle that much electrical current.

That being said, LEDs really shouldn't be drawing that much current to where you would need to up the fuses. Make sure you're wiring everything in a parallel circuit. Also, I'm not too sure about this because I've never had to wire up that many LEDs but I think putting 2 LEDs on one resistor is not good. Sorry I can't give any better advice. But if you do get it working post some pics.

BTW, 3.4 volts... those are blue LEDs right? Cuz I love blue lights.

 

Actually they're bright pink<--wife's car

I used an LED calculator to get the 2 LEDs to one resistor...thanks for the input

 

You might want to try a different switch? It sounds dumb but sometimes the switch can have interference internally.
Or double check all of your wires, it is not common to blow a 10A fuse off of small LED's. think of it like this, the entire guage cluster runs off of 10A that is a whole lot more drain than your LED's. A common problem with wiring LED's is polarity, and or you might have a pinched wire somewhere that is grounding out the circuit?
good luck.

 

You really need a resistor per LED. Also try running wiring to a relay, then use a rocker switch as the relay activation point.