Wiring leds to turn on when door open.

[levee-11]

Hello everyone. This weekend I want to make led footwell lights that turn on when you open the door. I already have the led strip under the dash and I’ve made a cable that connects them to usb, and ran a low profile connector to the cigarette lighter so they turn on when the truck is on. However I want to make them only turn on when the doors are open. I could wire them into the dome lights I believe, or maybe the door switches, and I’ve seen other threads do this but they don’t give a real good answer as to how to do it. All I want is to connect the positive and negative from the leds to either a dome light or door switch. Does anybody know exactly where the wires are for one of these two things? Like I said I need a positive and negative not anything with grounding (I think there’s a difference, not super great with this stuff so correct me if I said that wrong). Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

 

[fixxor]

I tapped into the white/black wire (pretty sure thats it) coming down the driver side A pillar for mine. I found this thread talking about it: Where to tap the dome light?.

 

[Kanoe]

Exactly as stated above, in the drivers A pillar.

I put a second gen map light mirror with LEDs in mine and everything needed was found in the A-pillar. It has been several years but I believe you will find a permanent power wire and a door switched ground there that you can use. That should do it. I didn't run anything up to the roof light (that I can remember now)

Of course those wires are likely accessible in a better place under the dash, but I couldn't help with that.

 

[phattyduck]

The wiring is slightly different between '96-'98 and '99-'02 on the door / interior light wiring.

In either case, the driver's door switch is a switched ground signal that is all by itself. The earlier trucks have the other 3 connected together and the later ones have the front passenger door separate from the two rear doors.

-Charlie