Sound Activated Neon Lighting

[CCLaguna]

I'm thinking about purchasing lighting for the inside of my car. I would rather learn how to install lighting on my own. Does anyone know any good web-sites or have any tips or could explain the best way to hook up interior lights. I'm going to put a sound activated light under the dashboard console so it lights up the feet area and i'm also thinking about putting LEDs into the vents. Does anyone know the best wya to do this and do I need to hook up the sound activated one specially or does it have it's own sensor on it?

Any help would be appreciated. It's a 2001 Chevy Cavalier.

[89Sunbird]

Most neon tubes you can get at places like Autozone, Checker, or Pep boys already are set up to light up to the bass...just mount em...as for tubes that are not set up to do that, I think it has something to do with a loose ground being completed by the shudder in the body.

[CCLaguna]

Well they have them set-up so they plug into the cigeratte lighter, but I want to know how to hook them up so when I turn my car on they come on, you know?

[01Cavy]

Mount them with a switch and don't use the cigaratte lighter. Connect them to a power source and make sure you use a fuse, and then connect them to a switch so you can turn them on and off as you please.

[CCLaguna]

Originally Posted by 01Cavy

Mount them with a switch and don't use the cigaratte lighter. Connect them to a power source and make sure you use a fuse, and then connect them to a switch so you can turn them on and off as you please.

Well that's what i'm saying....do you know how to do that or know a web-site that explains the best way to do this? Cause I don't know any of that.

[Thor06]

Some tubes come right out of the box and will light up to the bass and will have a little roller so you can adjust the sensitivity. My friend John's neon, whent the sensitivity is set high enough, will "dance" to our conversations. Others will just come so they are either on or off. For those ones you can get a sound control module or whatever so that module sends a signal to the neon to light up when the bass is on. If your neon "dances" to the bass because of a shitty ground, you need to fix the ground or get a new tube. Wiring it up is not hard at all, if you dont know how you shouldnt. Just run a power wire from the battery, through the firewall, through an inline fuse holder with appropriate fuse, to the neon and either grounded to a metal part of the car or back to the battery.

[CCLaguna]

Just run a power wire from the battery, through the firewall, through an inline fuse holder with appropriate fuse, to the neon and either grounded to a metal part of the car or back to the battery.

So I do all of that and where does the switch come in place? Does anyone know a good place to take it too, cause i've decided to add more lighitng. But if anyone can explain in good details or direct me to somewhere that will tell me, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[01Cavy]

What Thor said is pretty detailed. Run one wire from the battery into your car using an inline fuse. Guessing the switch you get has 3 connection points on the back the power wire you ran will go to the power connection on the switch. Now take the + wire on all the lights and splice them together and connect them to the + connection on the back of the switch. Then take the - wire of all the lights and splice them together and connect them to the - connection on the back of the switch. Mount the switch and you are done.

Now if your switch only has 2 connection points on the back than you will take the power wire to the power connection and all the + wires from the lights and connect them to the + connection on the switch. Then all the - wires will have to be grounded somewhere in your car, or as Thor said you can run a wire back to your - connection on your battery.

Hope that helps you out.

[CCLaguna]

Sorry i'm new at this:

So just run a wire that's connected to the + of my battery to where my fuses are, get the proper fuse (says on package i'm guessing?) and then run another wire or the same if long enough to the switch, then hook the + and - up and then mount the switch and all done?

[CavLCD128]

i dont suggest getting the neon lights from pepboys or autozone or anyplace like that because they break really easyily especially if you have a system. i had 2 in the front under the glove box and above my pedals and 2 under my back seats and they all broke. i had the wires run under the carpet to a powercord that ran directly to the battery and after all the hard work i put it 2 make them look really good 1 fell off.....and the other three broke because 1 end came off and the neon tube came out of the protective case.....goodluck tho

[CCLaguna]

I was looking at pep boys...any suggestions for some place else?

[CavLCD128]

Originally Posted by CCLaguna

I was looking at pep boys...any suggestions for some place else?

you could go 2 circut city, autozone, advanced autoparts, and just search on google for neon lights and they will give you tons of places. what i did was measured the space i had to hand the lights and then ordered custom fit lights offline

[01Cavy]

Originally Posted by CCLaguna

Sorry i'm new at this:

So just run a wire that's connected to the + of my battery to where my fuses are, get the proper fuse (says on package i'm guessing?) and then run another wire or the same if long enough to the switch, then hook the + and - up and then mount the switch and all done?

I wouldn't bother trying to run it to your fuse box. There is a fuse holder that you can buy that is a I guess you can say stand alone fuse....in other words you can mount it somewhere and not run the wire to your fuse box. You got the rest of it pretty much right.

[CCLaguna]

oooo, ok. That sounds much better actually. Yeah after figuring it out, it seems like the only hard part about all of this would be founding a place to mount the switch and making sure the light will stay mounted, haha. So do I connect the wire directly to the + on the battery, just wrap it around or something?

[01Cavy]

That is the fuse holder



Or a fuse holder like that



And to connect the wire to the battery get a connection similar to what is at the top right of the picture above. You can get a U shaped one like that or a O shaped one.