Quattro15

So I've got a Leer camper cover with a interior dome light and an LED brake light on it. I tried wiring it up and got the brake light to work but I've only got three wires coming out of the corner of my truck bed. This only left one wire to hook up to the dome light, I would have to have two wires in order to get this to work wouldn't I? If I hooked it up using the other wires that I hooked up the brake light with then it would only turn on when I hit the brakes so that is no good.

I bought this cover with the truck and it wasn't wired up when I got it, but it seemed to have the hookups there ready to be plugged in. I'd like to have that dome light operational as I'm getting ready for some summer camping and am going to be doing some truck camping this year.

Am I missing something?? It seems like I need another wire, but I'm not 100% sure.

If it makes a difference the dome light has a switch.

Thanks!!

mt_goat

You probably have 2 positive (one for the brake light and one for the dome) and one shared ground wire.

Quattro15

Thanks Goat!!!

Quattro15

So I tried to wire up the cover...

I got the brake light working just fine. But in no combonation at all can I get the light to work. I can get it to light up when I hit the brakes...just like the brake light, but I can't get it to work independantly.

I have wires connected to the brake light and one more wire not connected to anything as well as the wires coming from the interior dome light.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

mt_goat

Ok on the dome light, what are you using for a constant source of 12V "+"? On mine I have a "+" wire running all the way back there just for that light. If you can get it work off the brake light circuit, it should work all the time with a constant 12V source. Note: I don't have a 3rd brake light on my cap.

Edit: Oh maybe your brake light circuit is a switched ground? If so, the ground wire would be switching on and off for the brakes, so you can't share the ground. But if that was the case I don't know why you couldn't share the "+" side and have 2 seperate grounds. So, that would be one positive wire for both lights and 2 seperate ground wires. One switched with the brake light circuit and one constant for the dome.

BTW I'm not an EE (electrical engineer) so work at your own risk hehe. Might want to post up for help in the electrical section where all the EEs hang out.

Quattro15

Yeah...I've tried all combonations for this dome light, can't get the thing to work!!

I'm going to go out there in a bit and play around with it some more, we'll see what happens.

Thanks Goat.

mt_goat

Might hit your refresh botton, I did quite a bit of editing on my last post. Good luck

Quattro15

Well I got it to work finally.

Seems that the ground wire is shared and the other "hot" wire is connected to my running lights. So I have to have my running lights activated in order for the dome light to be turned on.

This seems a little odd. Is this normal practice?

Thanks!!

mt_goat

Well mine's not like that, mine is hot all the time.

stormin94

I've ran a fused line from the fuse box(or the battery would also work, but you'd need a longer wire) back to the light, and it works great I've also heard of people running a small lantern style battery in the back, and just wiring it up to that, if you take your shell off a lot, or just can't seem to figure out the (truck's) battery wiring, or fuse box(fuse box has a "hot" line in it also).

It's really simple. The brake light should have been the hard part.