so i have some wal-mart 10" underdash blue neons..and when i have em plugged into the cig. lighter they are bright as hell and i love it....

but it looks gay so i obviously spliced the wires and ran a wire straight from the battery thru a 30amp fuse than to the switch and each neon is still getting the 12.4-12.7 volts but they are like 1/3rd the brightness...why is this?

i ran speaker wire fro 2 power lines, one power line is fro 2 10" neons, the other wire is for 2 strobes and glow pedals...gonna be rewiring and putting the switches in cubby hole, but was hoping someone could help me out with this underdash neon dilemma..

i want them to be BRIGHT i also have 2 9" that WERE under there but i took em out to replace with the 10" cuz they were to dim, but so are the 10" so im gonna put the 2 9" in the back seat somewhere and leave the 10" just wondering if anyone knew why they were so dim... any suggestions??

 

Wire gauge possibly because you extended wire alot.

 

try running the wire directly to the lights w/o going through the switch.. if they are still dim, redo the power through switch but take out the fuse.. maybe theres just too much going on through the line and you are losing some of it on the way.. unless you have it tested on end with a meter... in which case it mighta had something to do with the type of fuse the cig lighter part is using.. take apart the plug and look to see if there is a fuse in there

 

alright ill take out the fuse to see but yeah, i had a voltmeter so i tested the power wire and ground wire and it said 12.74 volts...

so i'll see tomorrow. thanks for the input guys

oh and its 16 guage speaker wire....maybe i shuold of used a diff. type of wire? i figured they were all the same...

 

16 guage seems fairly small for this type of application. Try using bigger cables

 

well i took out the fuse today, still look dim, i think ur right on the guage....i think ill go for a higher one next time i do anything....right now i got the 2 underdash, strobes, glow pedals, and a 10" on the rear deck lid.

One switch is used for all of htem but the strobes.

Eventually i think im gonna put 2 more neons under the seats and maybe 2 on the C pillars...i dunno.

Next im gona make all my interior lights blue, than intake and strut bar, than rear strut bar exhaust, and Tint somewhere in there.

My bro said hes getting me an underboy kit for my b-day which is the 25ht

 

Don't forget that the higher the number, the smaller the wire. You want to go down in numbers so you can go up in wire size

 

yeah i know the lower # the thicker the wire...

its weird...cuz my deck lid neon is pretty bright compared to my 2 under dash neons....they are all to the same switch and wired identical....and the decklid has about 20x's more wire length than the underdash neons do...

maybe ill get some 4 guage wire into the cabin and splice it to 5 diff switches....one for each neon(3 neons), glow pedals and one for the strobes, lol....oh well.

but even when its ONLY one of those 10" neons and thats it...coming straight from the 16guage wire to a ground, its still dim..so maybe the neons are bad? i dunno, but when i use a voltmeter and they are getting 12.7 volts, they are still just as dim...any ideas? i think its just the neons..i ahd 2 9" but they are 'burnt' out and only lasted a few days...i dunno lol

 

heres your problem..

 

funny....lol anyways.

when i had them plugged into the cig lighter they were fine....hooked em up to the other wires through a switch and they are dim...i got 3 10" wal-mart neons..all to the same wire connected to the same switch, and all along a wire that is connected to a ground...now the rear decklid neon is like 3-5x's brighter than the other 2 under the dash

 

Hey, I'm trying to put neons under the dash, where did you put your ten? I couldn't find a place, but I read this and now i wonder where you put it.

 

Hey bro if you want I have a lot of neons for sale, not sure if you're interested, but I had the same problem until I installed my audio system with a capacitor. I also agree that it could be because you have neons from walmart, but if you bought your other neons from there you should have no problem.
If you're inetersted I have light blue neons,
Four 9", Two 6", One 4", One Quad Socket, One Scanner, Indiglo Pedals (Automatic). PM me if interested.....

 

If you still have the cig. plug you might want to check to see if there is a small resistor in there. Neons get dim when they are recieving a non constant power supply or too much voltage...I can almost bet since it is a walmart special there is a resisor in the cig adaptor....iwouldnt be surprised if your neons go poof...the are prolly an off shade of the color too!!! This is just some advice from an electronics teacher....DJ

 

well heres how i did it...

i got the 2 neons, have them and my glow pedals and a neon by my backseat all wired to one wire, than to a switch, that switch is powered from a wire straight form the battery.

NOW the thing is...the 2 underdash neons aren't that bright, but the rear seat neons is hella bright and my pedals are bright...so i think the 2 neons are just bad...but before i cut the wires i had one of them plugged into the cig lighter like hwo it comes in the package and it was bright...i know they are both getting 12.5-12.7 volts because i used a voltmeter to make sure they were getting power.

ill try to take some pics of how i have them mounted....all i can say is zipties are ur friend, lol. just find any hole or bar and run the ziptie around that and aroud the neon and pull tightly. on the passenger side i had to connect 2 zipties together to fit around a wiring cover and the neon. but i just used zitpies and they are holding up fine.

i got 16guage stereo wire from my batt to 2 switches, one switch is the 3 10" neons and pedals, the other switch is for my 2 strobes.

OH and the 2 underdash neons that are dim...wuts weird is...they aren't grounded....when i grounded them..they turned off, but when i didn't have them grounded they turn on/off with the switch, but are dim. ill try to ground them again to see if they will work or not.

BUT alas, its 25 degrees outside, my car has 1/2" of ice covering EVERYTHING..windows, door handles, door panels, hood, etc etc. and i work tonite, so tonite ill take pics and try and post them when i get home so u can see how they are mounted.

the reat seat neon i attached the hard part of velcro onto the neon and just pressed it against the seat...below the seat where ur heels would go is the soft carpeting and i just attached it there across that big hump in the backseat foot area....shows up nicely...however i want my whole interior to glow blue like the skyline on 2f2f...but for now im saving money for wheels.

 

do you have a system?? if you got subs or too many components running off your battery its gonna kill those lights, and like somebody said above, check out that lighter adapter, and see if its got any kind of resistor. and i cant even begin to explain why those things would light up w/o a ground, ive put plenty of them in friends cars but ive never see em run w/o a ground. check all your wiring and make sure there is no exposed wire newhere.