camper shell interior light wiring question
 

Hi,
I would like to install a light (dome style) on the inside roof of my camper shell. I have one positive and one negative wire already inside the bed of the truck. My question is how do I wire in a switch to turn the light on and off. I want to run one light and a switch running from the light down to the rear of the bed by the tail gate for easy on and off.
Could someone please explain how to do this or post a little diagram.
I would appreciate it very much.
TS

Welcome. I have a 12 volt light in my cap. What I did was found a light that has a switch already in it and wired it into my parking lights. so in other words, I have to have my parking lights on for the light to work. I did this so that if I ever left the light on by accident, it wouldn't drain my battery because I would shut my parking lights off which would kill the cap light light. If you don't have a light like this, all you have to do is get a cheap on-off switch and wire it into either your positive or ground wire. you just need something to interupt hte circuit.

Check this page out. It should help. They say 6 volt circuit at the top of the page but it doesn't matter. everything is the same for 12volt.

http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/vol_6/chpt_2/3.html

In my daily driver, I added a pair of lights in the shell. Just wired 12 volts to one side of the switch, the other side of the switch to one side of the light and the other side of the light to the negative wire. Close switch, light turns on. I used a 1 watt LED lamp so the power drain is very low (0.08 amps).

http://[IMG]http://i223.photobucket....ay42008005.jpg[/IMG]

Simple circuit diagram, I hope you get the idea.

<a href="http://s223.photobucket.com/albums/dd49/vambo213/?action=view&current=May42008005.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd49/vambo213/May42008005.jpg" border="0" alt="Simple Circuit"></a>

http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/d...ay42008005.jpg

in my cousins ford courier, we grounded the light in the shell. Then we ran a + wire to switch in the bed, to the light. We also ran the + wire for the dome light in the cab (the connection to the light), and ran that back there as well. Presto! Open door, light on. Flip switch in bed, light on. Flip switch in cab, light on. We also used a low-draw LED because my cuz was worried about the power draw on the dome light circuit.