Type-Sothea

about 6 months ago i did the neon footwell lighting mod on my car without any problems. today i decided to add 2 blue LEDs to lighten up the interior a little bit more. i connected the wires from the LEDs directly to the wires of the neons. after about a minute all the lights went out including the door lights. i replaced the courtesy lighting fuse on the passenger side and the lights came back on for about a second then there was a little pop sound and the fuse was blown again. I do have an inline fuse holder. does anyone have any ideas on how i can solve this problem?

Any help will be appreciated

larryr20

A fuse will blow when there is too much draw or a short in the wiring. Try disconnecting the new lights and see what happens. If it doesnt blow, you may want to run this to another available circuit. My guess is your neons are drawing a decent amount of power.

larryr20

A fuse will blow when there is too much draw or a short in the wiring. Try disconnecting the new lights and see what happens. If it doesnt blow, you may want to run this to another available circuit. My guess is your neons are drawing a decent amount of power.

Type-Sothea

ok, i've just disconnected the LEDs from the neons and now the LEDs are not connected to anything. I have a switch to turn the neons on and off and it is at the off position. I replace the 7.5 A fuse and once again it is blown on contact. any ideas?

Southern

It seems that you have a short in your wiring. Try disconnecting all of the wiring you added for the neons and LED's. If the fuse doesn't blow then you have a short in the wiring you added. If the fuse still blows then try disconnecting the doors lights and interior lights.

njtls

neons dont draw alot of power...and leds barely any...sounds like a short

Type-Sothea

if the fuse doesnt blow after i remove the neons and LEDs would i be able to put them back on again? what exaclty does it mean to have a short and how can i prevent this from happening again?

Thanks guys

Southern

If the fuse doesn't blow after you remove the wiring to the neons and LED's then unless you want the fuse to blow again do not reconnect them.

A short means that the positive wire is shorting to ground causing the fuse to blow.

A simple way to check if you have a short is to put a continuity checker (or ohm meter) between the positive wire and the ground. If there is continuity you have a short.

I suspect that your problem is with the wiring to the LED's since you had the problem after wiring them up.

Type-Sothea

hmmm if the problem was because of the LED's then wouldn't things go back to normal after I disconnect the wiring from the LED's?

I'll try to disconnect all the wiring tomorrow and see if this resolves the problem. If there is a short would i be able to make the neons and LED's work again if i change all the wiring?

Thanks again for your help guys.

njtls

maybe you shifted some of the old wire...if anypar tof the wire is exposed to gorund hten you will have a short....make sure all your connects are tapped up

larryr20

Like Southern mentioned, if after disconnecting everything and it still blows, then you have the positive lead grounding out somewhere (It can be touching the negative lead or touching a piece of metal on the car). This has to be fixed before you move forward. If it doesnt, hook up each one one at a time.

Type-Sothea

alright sorry about the late reply guys. been pretty busy for some reason.

but anyways, i was able to take all the wiring from the neons off so it was basically back to stock. i put in another 7.5 A fuse and this time it didn't blow. my doors, dome, and map lights all came on fine.

before taking the neons off i checked all the wiring and made sure it was all correct and no +'s touching -'s but the fuse still blew.

is there anyways that i can hook the neons and LED's back up again to the same wires?

larryr20

How many neons do you have? You should try to connect the neons and leds one at a time and make sure you dont have a problem with a particular unit. in other words, test each light to check for an internal flaw. A fuse will blow for either a short or too much load on the line. Like njtls mentioned, these dont draw alot of power but 7.5 A is not a very large fuse. Do you know if that is the standard fuse for that circuit? Im wondering if you have too much load on that circuit and the fuse cant handle it. I wouldnt put a larger one in if it is correct.

Type-Sothea

yes 7.5 is the standard fuse. i had two 10 inch neons for over 6 months without any problems at all. tried to add 2 blue LEDs no problem. I think the problem happened when i accidently cut LED wires. then the neons started to blink and then everything turned off. i thought that it would come back on after i connect the LEDs again but it didnt.

larryr20

this sounds like a short somewhere. like I mentioned, hook each light up independently and test each one. One of them may have an internal short you cant see.

Type-Sothea

well today i connected the wiring from the neons back to the same connection it was on before. and nothing happened. the fuse didn't blow and there was no problem. so i put the LEDs back on and everything works great. just wanted to let you guys know. kinda wierd that taking the connection off and reconnecting would solve this problem. thanks a lot to all who helped. especially larryr20.

larryr20

my pleasure. Ive been helped many a times from this site and sometimes it just takes a different opinion. Glad to hear it works!!