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I have a 3 year old ARE MX Topper on my F250.
I see that the newer ones have an interior LED option (not available when I bought mine).
All I have is the single light at the rear with a switch.
So, I want to install some interior LED lights.
I have seen strips of LED lights that have basically double sided tape to adhere them to the surface.
However, my topper has the fabric headliner so it is fuzzy.
I doubt that the tape will stay stuck for very long.
I am looking for ideas as to how to secure these strips.
Also, I am looking for ideas as to how to conceal the wires since I want to do a track on the roof left and the roof right side for maximum illumination.
Ideas, comments, suggestions?
Thanks.
Steve.
I had the led strip option on my last are topper. Velcro holds nice and tight to the carpet headliner. LEDs draw very little power and you can tie them into your existing dome light. Strands of led lights can be found pretty cheap on eBay, Amazon, etc.
I put the adhesive kind under the bed rails. They're blue, more for mood lighting, but I think a white set would give off a pretty good amount of light.
I've bought the light kit and the connectors to be able to hook it into the dome light.
Now I just need some velcro and an open weekend to do my installation.
I will post the pics when done.
Thanks to all for the various ideas.
Here's what I bought:
All the materials have arrived and I finally had some time yesterday so I got it all installed.
The lights themselves are 16 feet long and about 5/16 inch wide with a sticky back.
I also bought a 30 foot roll of sticky back black velcro.
The smallest I could find in a roll was 3/4 inch.
Working with my DW we stuck the light strip to the velcro hooks strip then using a scissors trimmed off the excess velcro.
The interior of the topper is factory carpeted and has an interior square depression which just happens to be about 16 feet in circumference.
The light strip came with a 4 inch long 2 wire cable in a sleeve with a connector.
I removed the connector and stripped back the sleeve and stripped the wires and wired them into the same switch as the existing interior light.
It was then a simple matter to used the velcro to adhere the light strip around the square overhead.
I took the pics a dusk when there was still enough light outside, but dark enough inside.
I took a pic without using the camera flash but it was too dark to make out any detail so I have not posted it.
Below is a pic with the lights off using the camera flash and then a couple pics using with the lights on.
The interior is fully illuminated and is so much better than having to use a flashlight.
Even during the afternoon when I installed them it helped to eliminate shadows and just made visibility that much better.
Lights off with camera flash enabled. View from back to front.
Lights on with camera flash off. View from back to front.
Lights on with camera flash off. Interior view of full illumination.
Very nice! My truck topper came with 2 12v LED interior lights and it still leaves a lot to be desired and I'm planning the same thing on my truck. I've got a Leer locker in mine which provides some metal surface area to attach the led strips to. I hope for the same results you've got.
