I finally got around to trying to wire up the LED strip I found as a better trunk light for the Protege5. Turns out, the reason the light is SO dim back there is that it's a low-voltage light, as in too low to power my LED strip!
So, crap.
I went to a Mazda Club tech session last night, where we got to use the lifts at a Mazda dealership and some of their techs stuck around to give help and advice. Two techs helped me try to get the thing wired up, and while the strip would light up like the SUN when connected to the battery, it wouldn't even flicker when wired into the existing tail light.
My best bet is going to be running a wire from the fuse box to the hatch area to power the LED strip. I could then either wire in a switch and turn it off and on by hand or if I was really feeling frisky, wire a relay in to the existing light, and use that to control the separate circuit for the LEDs. My wife suggested a switch installed next to the stock trunk light. That way, you open the hatch, the crap little stock light comes on and illuminates the switch for the LED strip, and now you can find the switch and have some real light!
So, back to (nearly) square one. My father in-law suggests I just hide a battery pack back there somewhere. Truthfully, that would probably work, but I don't want to do it that way. I really want it to come on and off with the hatch, like the stock light, but I accept that it may be too much trouble. I guess I need to do some research into relays!
So, crap.
I went to a Mazda Club tech session last night, where we got to use the lifts at a Mazda dealership and some of their techs stuck around to give help and advice. Two techs helped me try to get the thing wired up, and while the strip would light up like the SUN when connected to the battery, it wouldn't even flicker when wired into the existing tail light.
My best bet is going to be running a wire from the fuse box to the hatch area to power the LED strip. I could then either wire in a switch and turn it off and on by hand or if I was really feeling frisky, wire a relay in to the existing light, and use that to control the separate circuit for the LEDs. My wife suggested a switch installed next to the stock trunk light. That way, you open the hatch, the crap little stock light comes on and illuminates the switch for the LED strip, and now you can find the switch and have some real light!
So, back to (nearly) square one. My father in-law suggests I just hide a battery pack back there somewhere. Truthfully, that would probably work, but I don't want to do it that way. I really want it to come on and off with the hatch, like the stock light, but I accept that it may be too much trouble. I guess I need to do some research into relays!
