Trunk Wiring Diagram Help

RallyeRedRider · 08-12-2008

When I got my civic the PO had disconnected the interior trunk light, and had put in a 12” red neon in its place. This is cool with me, but the 1 neon just isn’t enough light to see squat at night. Since I had 4 pairs of 4” red cold cathodes collecting dust I figured I’d throw them in there.
The tricky part is making sure the lights come on and turn off when they are supposed to. Here is a diagram of the stock trunk wiring:

As you can see the light always has power, the trunk switch opens and closes the ground (it connects the circuit when the trunk is opened). The Control Unit activates the dash warning light when grounded (saying that the trunk is opened).
This is what I have in mind:

This will now run juice through the trunk latch switch, but only enough to turn on the relay. I’ll have to cut the wire to the control unit, which means that the warning light will never work.

Is this a safe way to work it? Can anyone think of a scheme that would still retain the “trunk opened” warning light?

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TRIZ · 08-12-2008

I have 2 CCFL tubes powered off the stock wiring back there, just snipped off the ld one and wired the inverter box. They use next to no power, I dont see why you couldnt run a second set of them.

RallyeRedRider · 08-13-2008

Ok, I did some more research, each pair of cathodes uses .7 amps, thats just under 3 amps for all the cathodes. How much power do neons use? This circuit only has a 7.5 amp fuse (and powers the map and overhead lights as well). I have a feeling that with the interior lights and the trunk lights on at the same time it might overload the circuit and blow the fuse. But maybe not. . . opinions?