has anyone run wire to the bed of the truck to get light into it? I didnt know if there was a hole that you can run wire from the cab to the bed. I was thinking maybee drill a hole in the plastic oval thing. I was thinking about setting up a few LEDs in the cab facing the floor under the back seat and front/passenger underneath the dash. i was going to hook up all the LEDs fro the cab to the bed with one switch. Since LEDs use little power, I probably could run the entire system in series. Has anybody done this before. I want some low light so the bugs dont get to it when I fish.

 

Id say just run the wires under the bed and through the plastic molding on the top of the bed like you said. I know another member has done it and can find some more infor on it if you like

 

I might get one of those water proof units for the bed and under the hood.

 

Series wiring drops voltage, not current. Wire six 2 volt leds in series and you need a 12v battery. Run 6 12v leds in series and get very dim light. Remember that the truck runs about 14.5 volts when engine is running. Something people tend to forget with sensitive led electronics.

 

I was thinking the same thing earlier but didnt know. I guess Ill have to play around with the wiring and maybee even get a LED power supply with a switch.

 

Im using a Sylvia Dot It lamp in mine. 3 BRIGHT LED's light up the bed real good. Mounted it at the back corner with the stick tape that comes with it. For $10 you cant go wrong, it comes in various colors and even comes with batteries. Got it at Advance Auto Parts.

 

Ya I was looking at the same idea. I have a tonneau cover and at night it is impossible to see into the bed w/o a flashlight.

My idea was to run a couple LED strips either under the bed rails or on the tonneau itself. Depending how ambitious I got, I was also going to install a plunger on the tailgate to activate the lights.

 

we solved the tonneau light problem the same way I did on our firetrucks

on our century tonneau with the optional scissor lifts

we siliconed the lights to the metal where the lift arms attach to the tonneau with silicon glue
we then run the 2 conductor zip wire down the lift arms. the zip wires are ty-wrapped to the arms
to get power to the rear of the truck, we tapped the fuse panel for an unused power tap, we fused the lead with a 10 amp fuse, we ran the wire out of the cab and ty-wraped the wire to the wiring harness.

we mounted a switch on the forward side of the stake pocket on the right side stake pocket

we run the zip wires from here, 1 forward to the rigt rear lift arm of the tonneau and the other runs back down the body and then across the rear frame rail and harness up the oposite stake pocket.

the wires are siliconed to the under side of the bed rail,

just before the lift arms, the zip cord ends in insulated spade connectors.
the zip wires from the light down the lift arms end in matching spade connectors this allows us to remove the tonneau when necessary.

the lights are grounded where the switch is mounted as well as at the trailer hitch

in an upgrade, we have obtained several trunk mercury switches and mounted them with 2 of the tonneaus so that they light when lifted. mounted to a screw on the lid
with some adjustment this seems to work rather well. beats having to turn on a switch

when time allows we will retro fit all the tonneaus with these.

we used the mercury switches out of old tarus's seem to work well, cost $1.00 each

the lights we used are by Peterson manufacturing and came from wal-mart, about $5.00 each

plenty of light, lift up and out of way

use plenty of silicon, tape into place allow to set, we allow 24 hours and do not move the truck for hat period.

any better ideas, please post