Best way to tap

[GottaBeTRD]

Hey guys, so pretty soon im going to be going crazy here with some LEDs as far as courtesy foot well lights, cup holder lights and some LEDs for my retrofit. Ive seen the threads of where to tap in to but i dont think i know how to do this ive drawn a picture of how i think it works sorry my drawing skills are about as good as my tapping skills

basically do you just take the 3 ends of the hot wire and connect them together then ground everything else? Whats the best tools to tap wires. i saw some heat shrink stuff and those little crimp deals. anyway thanks in advanced guys!

 

[GottaBeTRD]

seriously?? common guys help me out here. Like i said in my first post, I have seached but i only see threads saying where to tap, not how.
Anybody??

 

[J-money$$$]

your kind of doing something that very few people do, so dont be surprised that no one has any info. My best advice would be to go off the power wire to the dome light

 

[GottaBeTRD]

ok thanks man thats what i was trying to find out,

so yeah im just trying to learn how to go off of the power supply. Im not just doing the courtsey lights, basicly Im just trying to learn how to do this in gerneral. (all over)

If you know a thread or have an easy explination on how to do this that would be much appreciated. I cant even find it in google search

 

[BigFishAllDay]

I don't know jack about LED's, but I do know a little about wiring. The easiest way to tap wires is to use these....

The only thing you have to look out for is making sure you get the correct gauge/size. The size of the slots in the little metal peice inside varies, they make them for small wires (18-20ga) up to the bigger wires (10-12ga). If you use the bigger ones on small wire they don't cut through the sheathing all the way and you end up having to pull them off and redo the connection, which is a pain in the arse because you don't find out there's a bad connection until you go to fire everything up. And of course the smaller ones on big wire doesn't work so good either.

A more secure way to tap a wire would be to remove about 1/2 inch of sheathing from the wire to be tapped (Dont cut through it completely, just remove the sheath). Then strip 1/2" of sheathing off the wire that you're tapping in. Wrap the new wire around the existing wire several times, then solder the joint. Put some shrink wrap on it, followed by some good electrical tape. This gives you a much better and more reliable electrical connection, and a more streamlined tap that's not as bulky.

 

[Opi]

i dont know how much this really applies as i know little about this, but if youre adding lights to power where there were none, i would put in some type of small inline fuse so you dont fry something with added lights on one power source

 

[GottaBeTRD]

I don't know jack about LED's, but I do know a little about wiring. The easiest way to tap wires is to use these....

The only thing you have to look out for is making sure you get the correct gauge/size. The size of the slots in the little metal peice inside varies, they make them for small wires (18-20ga) up to the bigger wires (10-12ga). If you use the bigger ones on small wire they don't cut through the sheathing all the way and you end up having to pull them off and redo the connection, which is a pain in the arse because you don't find out there's a bad connection until you go to fire everything up. And of course the smaller ones on big wire doesn't work so good either.

A more secure way to tap a wire would be to remove about 1/2 inch of sheathing from the wire to be tapped (Dont cut through it completely, just remove the sheath). Then strip 1/2" of sheathing off the wire that you're tapping in. Wrap the new wire around the existing wire several times, then solder the joint. Put some shrink wrap on it, followed by some good electrical tape. This gives you a much better and more reliable electrical connection, and a more streamlined tap that's not as bulky.

i was looking at those things, so basicly just put the two wires together and crimp them together?

see i was thinking kind of like your second option. basicly you take some of the sheeth off of the hot wire on the lights then cut the power supply wire, and take some of the sheeth off on both ends of that, then combine the wire hooked to the lights with one side of the power source wire, and finally hook the other end in to a deal like this?

would that work?

i dont know how much this really applies as i know little about this, but if youre adding lights to power where there were none, i would put in some type of small inline fuse so you dont fry something with added lights on one power source

I've been looking into that i think LED's draw such little current you dont need one (i hope anyway) ive akmost got a full conversion so im hoping i wont need to do this.

 

[BigFishAllDay]

i was looking at those things, so basicly just put the two wires together and crimp them together?

see i was thinking kind of like your second option. basicly you take some of the sheeth off of the hot wire ( + ) on the LED's then cut the power supply wire (existing wire, part of vehicle's factory wiring), and take some of the sheeth off on both ends of that, then combine the ( + ) wire hooked to the LED's with the 12V+ feed of the power source wire, and finally hook the other end ( the ground wire of the LED's )in to a deal like this (and connect it to ?? )?

would that work?

I think you're misunderstanding the meaning of "tapping a wire". When you tap a wire, you leave the original circuit intact. You are simply tapping into it to provide an electrical connection for another device.

What you're describing above is removing the factory lights bulbs from the circuit and creating a new circuit that includes only the aftermarket LED's.

I absolutely would not reccommend hacking up your vehicles factory wiring. The problem you're going to run into is that on the low amperage circuits (lighting & accessories) Toyota wires alot of things in series... so starting at the battery the + wire might go into a bulb, then out of a bulb, but instead of going straight to ground it will feed the + side of the next bulb, and so on, until finally it reaches a ground after passing through several lighting circuits. If you start cutting those wires you're going to disable everything downstream of the cut.

Tap the (+) connection of the LED's into the factory wiring in front of the factory bulbs (when I say in front, I mean on the side of the wiring that is electrically closest to the battery)... connect the (-) side to a ground point. Remove the factory bulbs from their sockets. Toyota set the wiring up so that if a bulb blows, the overal circuit (connected in series as I described above) remains intact.

You will prob want to have a multimeter and a factory wiring diagram to do it right.

 

[GottaBeTRD]

oh boy, im glad you told me that thanks! That would have had beem a bad mess, so from what i understand, say i want to tap some LEDs into my parking lights, ( i still want the factory bulbs to work) im planning on tapping into each side of the parking light power supply. im i going to take the positive part of the wire and crimp it to the OEM power supply? or is that still a bad idea?

I guess im still kind of confused as to how to use the power from one light to add another. Am i just taking the plastic off of the wire? by the way ive already got the PnP LEd bulbs in the parking lights i just have these LED's that im going to want to add when i do my retrofit
it has 2 wires obvisously hot and ground

 

[BigFishAllDay]

Here's an example.. (Crude, I know, but I just threw this together in MS paint real quick, FB = FACTORY BULB)

In example #1, you would be creating a parallel circuit, and in example #2, you would be creating a series circuit. Which one you choose depends on the resistance of the element that you are adding. If the resistance of the new element is high, you want a parallel circuit, if it is low you can go with a series. I'm not sure what the resistance of an LED is, but to be safe, I'd run parallel circuits.

The arrows represent the direction of the current flow within the circuit. You can see how in the series circuit, the current flows through the LED, then downstream to flow through (and light) the factory bulb. This is how Toyota sets up most of the dashboard lighting wiring, the final component being the dimmer, which controls how much current is allowed to go to ground and thus, the amount of current that is allowed to flow through the elements in the circuit. Less current = less brightness.

I know that LED's require a special dimming setup, so you might need to look into it a bit more regarding LED's that are going into the dashboard lighting, but for adding that strip you pictured to the parking light circuit, you should be fine because it is not a dimming circuit.

Hook that strip up the way I showed you in example 1 and it should work just fine.

 

[A.Wilson013]

Walk with me, in my mind.

Imagine that black box is your dome light. The green wire is your POSITIVE wire to the light. The black is the POSITIVE to your led's.

You will literally just clip those together as pictured. Same drill with the NEGATIVES.

It's really too easy, and once you get it, you will be embarrassed of how much you thought into it =)

REFERENCE

 

[BigFishAllDay]

Throwing it in there and making it work is cool, but make sure you understand what you're doing. Take the time to learn about the wiring, it will only benefit you in the future.

Thinking about it isn't a bad thing. Even if you think about it alot. Measure twice, cut once. No regrets, no redo's.

 

[Volley]

The wire taps above make life oh so easy...goodluck

 

[GottaBeTRD]

oh man these are awesome thanks so much guys

so i think i get it. i pretty much wont have to cut any wires then, i just use one of those deals in the picture above. I knew it had to be pretty simple i just didn't want to ef something up. Ill still have to play around with it in my head a little but i think i can do this

sorry for my reply earlier its probably my fault for my wording and my bad drawings LOL