[petersg_99]

It was a bit difficult to get a halfway decent picture of the running lights at night, but here's the best one of the batch I took.

These were inexpensive strip lights I bought off of ebay (less than $10 for a 5 meter roll). I originally outlined the running boards, and it looked really good, but my feet kept brushing the top of the strips and pulling them off the running board lip, so I ended up throwing away the first batch and mounted a new batch of them on the Tupperware under the running boards. They're plenty bright, even visible during the day. I still have a few feet of LEDs left too

 

[RobS]

Peter, how do you run the power to those lights? I am electrically illiterate so always afraid to mess with capacitors, relays, switches... :-(

 

[Elliott Larron]

Peter, how do you run the power to those lights? I am electrically illiterate so always afraid to mess with capacitors, relays, switches... :-(

Not to Hard, Just TAP your Cig Port, Add a + - Leed Wire an trail the two wires to any location you want to light up, All so you can TAP Direct to Battery but the only thing is that you will have to have a OFF/ON Switch to turn them off and On, Unlike the Cig Port it's Automatic so when you turn off the Ignition it will turn off the Leds unless there Switched, Another way to do it from the Battery Direct is to get a Relay Connect it to the Cig Port and the relay will Allow Power from a Direct Connection from the battery to light up Lights or Leds, Will be better this way anyway because you don't want to put to much load on the Ignition system because it's Integrated to the KEY Ignition Switch, Even now Carbon on the Contacts inside the Ignition System is kind of Buggy,

Relay needed will have 2 connections - + from Cig port and On Relay 4 Way - +

Here is an example image

 

[ssray]

or I connected my posi end to my parking/running light and the other straight to the battery, so lights on and led`s too
I worked out that a 15w led at 12v takes about 0.8 of an amp, so i left the std fuse in

 

[petersg_99]

Peter, how do you run the power to those lights? I am electrically illiterate so always afraid to mess with capacitors, relays, switches... :-(

for the hot or power lead, I used quick splice connectors to hook into the wire running to the tail lights. For the negative lead, I hooked up to the scooter chassis. The advantage of splicing into the tail light is that it is fused and turns off with the ignition. The LED lights draw around 200mA (0.2 amps). That's a pretty small amount of current, so I figured I wasn't going to get close to overloading the tail light circuit. If the circuit was close to it's limit, I would have switched the tail light bulbs to LED bulbs to cut the power requirement.

Here's a couple of You Tube videos on using the quick splice connectors:

 

[petersg_99]

or I connected my posi end to my parking/running light and the other straight to the battery, so lights on and led`s too
I worked out that a 15w led at 12v takes about 0.8 of an amp, so i left the std fuse in

Just noticed you got the numerator and denominator switched, it's 15W/12V=1.25A. Still not a huge deal, and it's working for you, so it's all good.

 

[model28a]

I would rather use Posi-tap connectors rather than Scotchlok connectors.
The reason is the Scotchlok connectors can cut some of the wire strands but the Posi-tap connectors only pierce the wire without cutting any strands.

You can find them here.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004D0C18C/ref=asc_df_B004D0C18C2400921?smid=A1FRSYX6K938O2&tag=nextagusmp0401313-20&linkCode=asn&creative=395105&creativeASIN=B004D0C18C

 

[petersg_99]

I would rather use Posi-tap connectors rather than Scotchlok connectors.
The reason is the Scotchlok connectors can cut some of the wire strands but the Posi-tap connectors only pierce the wire without cutting any strands.

You can find them here.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004D0C18C...e=asn&creative=395105&creativeASIN=B004D0C18C

I didn't know about Posi-tap connectors until now. Thanks!

 

[Dave_J]

I would rather use Posi-tap connectors rather than Scotchlok connectors.
The reason is the Scotchlok connectors WILL cut some of the wire strands but the Posi-tap connectors only pierce the wire without cutting any strands.

I use about 10 to 400 Scotchloc connectors a day during my work as a telephone repair tech. They work very well on solid strand wire but I will NEVER use them on automotive stranded wire as the V of the connector will cut thru the outer strands and as vibration happens they erode more strands till POOF. Its not the load on the Scotchloc, its the loss of gauge in the wire to what ever it was feeding that will fail in time.

 

[model28a]

I use about 10 to 400 Scotchloc connectors a day during my work as a telephone repair tech. They work very well on solid strand wire but I will NEVER use them on automotive stranded wire as the V of the connector will cut thru the outer strands and as vibration happens they erode more strands till POOF. Its not the load on the Scotchloc, its the loss of gauge in the wire to what ever it was feeding that will fail in time.

You hit the nail on the head, I forgot to include the reason for not wanting to cut any strands. Thanks for explaining in more detail.