Hi, I am currently trying to connect indicator/reverse light in one LED strip to my ute canopy. The LED strip lights have a red/black/yellow wire.
I am confused because the black/yellow wires are both negative(black for indicator LEDs and yellow for reverse LEDs). The red wire is positive for both rows. I thought it should be opposite to that. On the vehicle this makes it hard for me to connect to the common negative circuit and have the positives controlled individually by indicator and reverse switches.
Is there anything I can do to make these lights function properly? Hope this all makes sense. Or are they a design fault as they should have one common negative and two separate positives to power LEDs individually? Your help is greatly appreciated. Worst case senario I can use them as JUST indicators or JUST reverse lights at this stage.
Thanks, Shane.

 

I hate to be the first response when that response is "I don't know." The reason why I don't know is because I haven't a clue what we're talking about. Could you be a little more specific? What exactly are we connecting? What are we connecting to? I could tell you that on an airplane the wire numbered 1L2007 is the positive and the 1L9007 is the negative, but it means nothing to everyone because we have no common frame of reference. Are we discussing a car? If so - make, model and year might help. A little more comprehensive description of your LED would also benefit. Do you have a part number or a catalog we can look at to hopefully learn a little more about how it's wired and what its purpose is. Also a little better understanding of your objective can shed a little more light on it as well.

And welcome to AAC

 

hi,
I assume your vehicle has the negative pole of the car battery connected to the chassis.?
Its not unusual to have the positive feed to say to your LED's, picking up the positive output from the IGN switch.
Grounding the negative via a gear shift switch to chassis and likewise the brake pedal switch, so switching on the correct LED group.
E


EDIT:
If your existing Brake lights are positive line switching, this is one option [requires two relays]

 

Multi color LED strips come in two flavors. You can have common cathode or common anode. You are describing a common anode where the LED anodes (Positive) are tied together making for the common anode. You light them up by placing either cathode to ground (Negative). The circuit Eric provided will work just fine. The downside is with a common anode in automotive applications is the need for more parts. The better choice would be a common cathode type.

Ron

 

Hi, I am currently trying to connect indicator/reverse light in one LED strip to my ute canopy. The LED strip lights have a red/black/yellow wire.
I am confused because the black/yellow wires are both negative(black for indicator LEDs and yellow for reverse LEDs). The red wire is positive for both rows. I thought it should be opposite to that. On the vehicle this makes it hard for me to connect to the common negative circuit and have the positives controlled individually by indicator and reverse switches.
Is there anything I can do to make these lights function properly? Hope this all makes sense. Or are they a design fault as they should have one common negative and two separate positives to power LEDs individually? Your help is greatly appreciated. Worst case senario I can use them as JUST indicators or JUST reverse lights at this stage.
Thanks, Shane.

Ok thanks, I will be more understanding a

Multi color LED strips come in two flavors. You can have common cathode or common anode. You are describing a common anode where the LED anodes (Positive) are tied together making for the common anode. You light them up by placing either cathode to ground (Negative). The circuit Eric provided will work just fine. The downside is with a common anode in automotive applications is the need for more parts. The better choice would be a common cathode type.

Ron

Excellant, thankyou very much for the information you certainly learn something new every day and you've halved me. I spoke to a work mate and he also said I need to put in a relay. I was simply confused as I have never had a common anode product before. it would have helped if the polarity of wires was explained in the items description. Cheers

 

*helped me

 

T

Multi color LED strips come in two flavors. You can have common cathode or common anode. You are describing a common anode where the LED anodes (Positive) are tied together making for the common anode. You light them up by placing either cathode to ground (Negative). The circuit Eric provided will work just fine. The downside is with a common anode in automotive applications is the need for more parts. The better choice would be a common cathode type.

Ron

Thanks for the diagram ericgibbs

 

hi Shfab,
It always a good idea to add a protection fuse to the supply when adding modules to a vehicles wiring.
You can get 'inline' fuses. [ in the Red wire]
If you post the rated wattage of the LED module, we can advise on fuse rating.

E

 

hi,
I assume your vehicle has the negative pole of the car battery connected to the chassis.?
Its not unusual to have the positive feed to say to your LED's, picking up the positive output from the IGN switch.
Grounding the negative via a gear shift switch to chassis and likewise the brake pedal switch, so switching on the correct LED group.
E


EDIT:
If your existing Brake lights are positive line switching, this is one option [requires two relays]
View attachment 156691

Thankyou helped me get an understanding

 

hi Shfab,
It always a good idea to add a protection fuse to the supply when adding modules to a vehicles wiring.
You can get 'inline' fuses. [ in the Red wire]
If you post the rated wattage of the LED module, we can advise on fuse rating.

E

They are 5w or less I believe, not %100 sure but they are only small. Thanks yes I'm familiar with the in-line fuses, I will always put an extra fuse in in-case. What would be the fuse Amp for the LEDs? Thankyou

 

hi,
If they are ~5W, I would use a 1A or 2A slow blow fuse, a 20mm type would be OK
E