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Not enough light in the cargo area at night, so here's my solution.
This one was a little bit tricky since there is no good way to add an led light somewhere that wouldn't be visible since it's an open cargo area. Cars that have trunk lids and rear decks is easy to have an LED strip hidden.
My condition was that the mod had to at least look like it should belong there, and not a massive hack job. I also wanted a "quality" install that would last. No generic looking bare led strips.
Ultimately I'm satisfied with what I came up with.... and with the exception for one change I should have just done, and might do in the future if it really bothers me (I'll note it down below), this was a successful mod as far as I'm concerned.
Would you have done it differently? Let me know and share your thoughts!
Parts Used
2-conductor jacketed primary wire, 16 gauge
COB LED Strip
Posi-Taps
Crimp Caps
Electrical tape
Basic Steps
Access the trunk light and run new wire through to roof liner...
Push it through to the other side of the trunk...
Getting access behind the plastic trim pieces was slightly difficult..
required some firm but careful yanking to get them to pop out..
Run the wire down to the speaker grill / cover. I found out that the
cover/grill is screwed in place by screws on the inside of the cover...
how inconvenient. I had to pull the trim out far enough to undo one of
the screws to run the wire through.
Here's where I connected the LED strip to the new wire and just used crimp caps on them.. used electrical tape to wrap them up in the end.
Mounted the light strip with the least amount of exposed wiring...
Connected the Posi-Taps to the factory light wires.. white with black strip is ground, other wire is power. Wrapped each tap with electical tape in the end.
And let there be light!
A couple things I would have done differently now that I did this...
1) The COB strip is pretty bright, even during the day. There won't be any way to diffuse the light or not have it directly in your eyes at night, so I might have wanted to use a smaller strip or something not rated so bright. A surface mount LED light would look good too, similar to a dome light.
2) The 2 conductor wire I used was 16 gauge, which was larger than I would have really needed, and I had to trim a few strands of wiring down to use it with the Posi-Taps I had that were meant for 20-22 gauge wiring. I had this wire available to me so I made it work, but I would have preferred a smaller gauge.
3) I should have drilled a small hole in the trim piece to feed the wire through to the led strip. It would have been barely noticeable. Having the speaker grill the way it is now because of the wire won't really bother me, but if I ever wanted to make it flush again and look right and more professional/like it should be there, I'd drill a tiny hole for the power wire.
4) Don't drop the speaker grill screw......... which I did when trying to screw it back in place. Now it's way down somewhere and I couldn't see it without taking the entire trim piece off.
08.29.2020
