great guide. used it and tweaked it to fit my scion purchased kit. couldve went cheaper and made the parts myself, but oh well... live and learn

 

You should gone all with LED....

 

So it'd cost more and be dimmer? I think I see your reasoning ;)

 

It won't not dimmer, if you get the right one or design it right...
Price isn't that much more expensive...
Also in long run.. LED would be cheaper....

 

I stand corrected.

I'm just jerking your chain.. IMO, cathodes are the best bang for the buck, but LEDs are just as 2002, too.

 

Cathods just don't have the right color I want... kind of look faded... just like neon....
LED might cost "little~~~" more, but colors, power usage, reliability and longevity, LED is better...

 

hey do u need to buy a fuse for the underdas cathodes???....i bought a set wit a computer switch from oznioum.com....it said no hardwiring nessesary wit the computer switch but i wouldnt wanna blow out a fuse or start a fire in my car....please advice me.....

 

anyhting electrical in the car should be fused

for just a set of underdash cathodes, the smallest fuse that i've seen, a 3 amp, is perfect.

just to give you an idea, ALL of my interior lighting + my engine bay lighting is run off of a single 3 amp fuse

 

ok how and where do u place the fuse...im completely clueless of how to wire these things and fuse them.......i wanna learn though

 

i dont know too much about electronics but how can i tap into the fusebox?

 

i dont know too much about electronics but how can i tap into the fusebox?

 

I just did this mod today, well the cathode part at least. I put two cathodes under the interior dash and two more in the top grille out front. Everything looks great. I followed this DIY for the most part except I went to my local automotive store (pep boys) and bought an aux wiring kit for $4.99 and it had everything i needed to wire everything up! It had a lighted switch, power, ground, and load wires with inline fuse. It worked great and was really easy to work with. Thanks for the DIY!!

 

Can you post some pics for us to see how it all turned out

 

I would but all i have is a crap camera phone...

 

Man that sucks if only...

 

I just want to put out a general warning.

Make sure you take every precaution and be as **** with the details as possible when doing this. I have had my LED's and cathodes in my car for 8-9 months --everything fine-- and yesterday i smelled a faint burning smell in my car and my power door locks didn't work anymore. I thought it was just a fuse or something.
Today, i go out to fix it.. turn my LED's on for some more light (garage) and the opening to the fuse box goes up in smoke. Somewhere in the wiring I must've left an open contact or something and it shorted. Even with the inline fuse i put in, it kept shorting.

I needed to put in a smaller amp fuse but foremost, i should have been a lot more careful in making sure that I protected every wire lead when installing (something I only thought about so much during the beginning stages of my install of the lights. This really sucks because I have LED's everywhere and I love the way they look while I'm driving.

Until someone can tell me what will guarantee that I can't have this problem again, I don't think I will be putting them back in. I feel so dumb because I'm good with this kind of stuff, but now I lost all self-confidence in it...

 

Use heat shrink tubing over the connectors... I also use that flexy finger-trap wire loom stuff over all of the wires which I secure on either end with more heat shrink tubing.

 

wow... this was REALLY useful... thanks for including part numbers and sizes of stuff....

 

Nice write up- looks great- clean install!

 

hey does anyone have pics as to where they hid the transformers? mine are just laying under the rear seat and just havent figured out where to hide them. i wanted to get an idea as to how to hide them.