Hey all,

I just got a hold of a cathode tube w/ music effect and wanted to know how I could hook it up to my sub box. Where do I connect the the wire to for power? I'm not very electronic incline and don't want to blow my $200 concept sub. Detail instruction will be appretiated

thx all

 

Hello,

Anyone at all?

 

I'll try to help you out but you need to be more specific. How many wires does this light have? Just power & ground? How do you want it to come on? With a switch, with the radio, when you open the trunk?

 

96TL,

There is two wires coming out and I actually just hook it up directly to one of the sub terminal. It worked fine but the light blew out this morning. I heard that the reason it blew out is b/c the AMP is feeding the light too much power. Is there another way I can hook up the light? I want to put it inside the sub box so that it will blink w/ the base.

thx

 

I would hook up a relay and use the remote from the headunit as a turn-on signal. Can you handle the rest? If the light has "music effect", it should work with vibration and blink with your bass anyway. You can test that by just touching the power and ground wires from the light to a 9 volt battery and holding it against the box with the music going. Let me know if you need more help with the relay.

 

BTW, dont try to hook a light up that way again. :wow:

 

96TL,

What happened if I hook up the light that way again? will I blow out my amp or sub?

anyways, the light does have a music effect built in already. Can you give me step by step detail on how to add a relay. Would I also be able to put the bulb inside the seal box w/o needing to drill any additional hole into the box.

thx a lot

 

You can get a relay from Radio shack for like $3. Here’s the way you should wire it up.

30 - Constant 12 volt (You can get this from the trunk light or amp wire)
85 - Remote from radio (Amp turn-on)
86 - Ground (Same as amp)
87 - To neon light (connect neon power wire here)

 

As far as putting the light in the box, sure you can do it but you need an exit for the wire. Maybe you can squeeze it though the side of one of the speaker wire terminals. Use really thin wire for the neon, take off one of the speaker terminals and try to put it back on with the neon wires coming out. If not you’d have to make a little hole somewhere and fill it with silicone. Keep it as
small as possible.

I don’t know what you could damage from hooking it up to the speaker wires, maybe nothing to the amps or subs, but you’ll definitely keep blowing neons. Truthfully, I’ve never heard someone try doing that. Just use a relay, its not hard.

BTW, if you want the neon to come on ONLY when you open the trunk you can just tap directly into the 2 wires going into the trunk light. That the easiest way. And you won’t need a relay since its only 1 neon, it wont overload your fuse.

 

You really hooked up your neons to your speaker terminals???? I would take 96TL's advice and use a relay. Heres a pic of what it shold look like. It dosent have to be that fancy tho.



Click here for a diagram

 

96TL,

30 - Constant 12 volt (You can get this from the trunk light or amp wire)
85 - Remote from radio (Amp turn-on)
86 - Ground (Same as amp)
87 - To neon light (connect neon power wire here)


I'm not very electronically incline so can you go into more detail on what the "85 remote from radio" and "86 ground" is? I did not hook up my sub myself. A guy a the radio store did it for me.

thx a bunch

 

bluedemon, those are the numbers that indicate the different legs on the relay that you will buy for this project. the relay is the little black boxlike thing to the top in sssick's picture. good luck.

this might help if you're inclined to read about it.
http://www.eatel.net/~amptech/elecdisc/coolfans.htm
there's an example here with a fan and a neon. for your purpose, I guess just ignore the fan.


the man's entire site is also a really useful read if you have the time
http://www.eatel.net/~amptech/elecdisc/caraudio.htm

 

I can make this a little more simple. This is the easiest way to do it. Look at your amps wires. There should be a small wire plugged in thats labeled "Remote" on the amp. Tap into that and use it for you relay. Also on the amp, you should see a wire labeled "Ground", tap into that also just like the remote. Try not to butcher up all the wires. Dont cut them, just splice them a little and wrap your relay wires around them and tape it up. I'm not sure how wires plug into your amp. Maybe you could make the relay and amp wires share the same plug without splicing into anything. It would be cleaner that way. Maybe if you dont feel comfortable you should have someone do it for you. It should be pretty cheap. Like I mentioned earlier, if you'd want the light to come on with the trunk open it would be ALOT easier to do. You wouldn't need the relay at all. Just tap into the 2 trunk light wires. Trunk light power to neon power, trunk light ground to neon ground. Thats it.

For your info, remote is the signal that comes from your radio and turns on the amp. Ground is where the amp is grounded to the chassis. You should see a wire with a ring connector screwed into bare metal somewhere in your trunk.