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Alright, so I'm planning on putting in a VTEC light as well as lights underneath my seats. Here's the plan. I'm going to follow the VTEC light DIY, and ground it to the black wire going into the cigarette lighter. For the neons, they come with a gayyyyyy plug in for the cigarette lighter, I'm going to cut this piece off, tap splice the positive wire into the cigarette lighter, and tap splice the other one into the ground of the cigarette lighter. Will this work? Should I put a resistor on the tap splice of the positive wire to make sure my lights won't be getting to much voltage? Can you think of an easier way, does anyone know of a DIY on fusing? I really don't know how to do this and I would like to learn.

 
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for the neons i tapped into the cig lighter 3yrs ago and its still working if thats what u asking.. no fuze no resistor

 
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If you wanna have them turn on when a door opens you'll need to tap the dome light. If you wanna add a switch to that, you'll need a relay and a switch. How many neons, whats their power consumption? Measure the voltage coming out of your cig lighter with a voltage reader- each car seems to be a little different.

 
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i wouldn't run multiple neons off the dome light wire without a relay. too small of a wire and too big of a load.

 
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hey quick question..wats the point of the vtec light. really..

 
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Ugh, I am doing the EXACT same thing with the neons. I have wires running into my doors where I've mounted the neons around my in-panel speakers. I tapped into the cig. lighter circuit as well, and grounded it in the same location.

Despite this, and the cig. lighter having a current and powering my cell-phone charger, my neons aren't working.

I made an in-dash toggle switch that the power wires are hooked up to, any ideas as to why?

 
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Well doesn't a VTEC light give you more horses??!?!!?!? Boeing said they weren't legaly able to ship me a wing off the 757 soooo, I need HP quick cause my neibourgh has a Corvette and I wana' beat it.

I'm just curious to see when it's on? It's gona' cost me like 10$ and 10 minutes of time, I don't see why not?

 
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the light comes on over 3k rpms

 
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Here is my .02

The only way to do the neons correctly, like the I.C.E. Mod said, is to use a relay. So run the Fused +12v to the relay and then use the dome light for the switch. You can also splice in a diode and an additional switch so that you can turn on the neons but not the dome light even with the doors closed. But I am just the Head installer at a Car audio shop, what do I know?
My car audio store!

 
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Use caution tapping anywhere in the dome light wiring. The control circuit is contained inside the under dash fuse box (along with a lot of other small circuits) (Multiplex control system) One accidental short or over current draw could cause damage.

 
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Instead of a light that comes on when you are in VTEC, how about a lighted switch so that you can turn on VTEC when "YOU" want. Now that would be mad tight yo..
When you get done with that you can do the right hand drive JDM mod.

 
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What's the point/purpose of a relay? I am a wiring noob, so even giving me some pointers and help with that would be much appreciated. I don't want to use the dome light, I have ALL the wiring done and I'll tell you, it was a bitch running it from my doors to inside the cockpit. I can put a relay before or after the toggle switch?

 
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relay is a switch that can be triggered by a low level electrical signal, then the relay supplies power to the device using "other" new wiring and not the wire you used to activate the relay. most commonly used for large draw devices like headlamps, where having them directly wired to a switch will just blow the switch and cause fire.

also, the dome lights are all fused. its called "small light" fuse. ive blown mine at least 5 times installing stuff and tapping wires and i never did any damage other than a blown fuse.

 
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Alright so if I want to wire it to the dome light and then have a seperate switch, where do I begin? I have no idea how to tap into the fuse block and I would have no idea how to find which circuit relates to which fuse on the fuse panel...

Why would that be better than running a tap on the cig. lighter circuit anyway? I really have no idea why it's not working as it is, all the connections are solid. I went to use my voltmetre on the circuit I made and grounded it on the cig. lighter itself (metal) and blew the fuse. You can't use the ground wire on the voltmetre on the ground in the circuit you're testing? Ughhh.

 
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depends on what you want it to do. if you want accessory to act like dome light, then use that. i couldnt figure it out so i tapped directly to the dome light wire. cig lighter will work too. on a switch, one input is for +12v which is one of the cig wires (make sure its + not -), another is output to accessory, and then ground the accessory to chassis.

 
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I did that exactly, the first + wire goes from the tapped cig. lighter wire to the switch, then the second prong on the switch goes to the lights in either door, and the grounds come back in through the doors and are grounded to the exact same ground as the cig. lighter, I even tapped into the cig. lighter ground once, but it still didn't work. The cig. lighter works, so the ground is fine, so wtf am I doing wrong here?

 
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Does it take like 20+ minutes for the threads to update last post for other people? :|

 
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did you ground the lights too? Turn on the switch?

 
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Yeah the lights are grounded at the same location as the cig. lighter, I spliced a ground that was from a circuit no longer being used and just put connectors on each end. I put a male connector on the new grounds and a female on the wire I cut, is there a reason this is an ineffective ground...?

I also tried tapping into the actual cig. lighter ground to ground my wires, and still didn't work. And yes, obviously I have been flicking the switch a few times each time I try the circuit.

 
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First lets make sure the lights work.
Run a wire from the + and the - of your battery directly to the lights. If they work it rules that out.

Then Instead of running the ground all the way back to the lighter. Make a new one in the door. Just sand or scratch the paint off of the metal and make a new grounding point for the light in the door.

Now make sure you have +12 and not -12v at the lighter. After that it should work.

When you have them all working, that is when you can do cool stuff with them. Like making them come on automatically when you open the door or what ever. If you wanted to you could even make them come on when you have initiated the VTEC.

 
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chances are that you've exceeded the capacity of the cigarette light wires. they're probably 22ga, maybe 20ga. i would highly, highly suggest using a relay for all this if you want the neons to come on with the dome light. the relay takes very little current to turn on, so you can safely trigger it with the dome light wires. then you run a new power wire from either the battery or the fuse box. why is this better than tapping the cigarette wires? again, the cigarette wires are small. the supply wires to the fuse box are big. so you tap it there and use a larger wire and you're safe.

 
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Here is a diagram of a regular 4 post relay.
This relay was drawn for the acc. to come on with the ignition but it will work for this application as well.

For your application:
Ground all the ground wires to the chassis.
Pin 87 Will be the out for your neons, (the +12v) Connect this wire to the wire for the neons.
Pin 86 Will be the +12 volt to turn on the neons. You can, if you want, tap in to the cig lighter for this. Just run a +12v to your switch then from the switch to pin 86.
Pin 30 this needs to be +12 volts from the battery or a wire from the fuse box. This will provide the power for the lights. Just run a wire from the source. If the source does not have a fuse you will need to put one inline as close to the beginning of the wire as possible. (Beginning being the opposite end, as related to the relay.)
Pin 85 This pin needs a GOOD CHASSIS GROUND.





If you have any other question, feel free to ask.

 
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I just thought of something. Have you made sure that the lights even work? This is a very important part. Neons require a ballast to make them work. Do yours have internal or external ballast? If they are external are they also installed?

 
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idk guys, the lighter can handle alot. i know people that have the 3 in 1 splitter with neons, phone, and other stuff plugged in. ive had two neons no problem (their wires are tiny tho). dome light, its made for 3 5watt bulbs so thats prolly enough for most light accessories. the dome wires are thicker than the lighter too.

 
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I've run a wire from the battery to the power wire for the neons, and it didn't work. I just changed my grounds and souldered them inside the doors after sanding the area down.

The neons came with a cig. lighter adapter, two nights ago I used that to plug them in and they worked, and I haven't done anything to **** them up since then. They are just very tiny tubes, if they do have ballasts I would assume they are internal, but there are no external ballasts.

I think I'll go to partsource and ask about a relay and see if they can take a quick look at it while I'm there.

 
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Let me get this right. You ran a wire from the battery to the neons and they DID NOT WORK? If so your problem is the stupid neons.
Please clarify that statement.

 
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if you cut the cigarette lighter plug off, are you sure you have the polarity correct on the neons. + and - DO matter on neons. they're not interchangeable like regular DC light bulbs.

 
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Nice diagram Matt. Saved me the trouble of asking how to do a relay when I get my electric power steering pump!

 
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i think he has the neon wires backwards if he says he connected to battery and they didnt work, or theyre broken