Interior lights

Jon305 · Jul 3, 2017

Interior lights help

I'm adding a few extra interior lights to my truck and cannot figure out how to hook them up so they come on when door is opened and go off when door is closed. Need help.

RonD · Jul 4, 2017

Welcome to TRS

What year is your Ranger?
2097 looks like typo, lol

The dome light wiring changed over the years.

Jon305 · Jul 4, 2017

Thanks And no its not a 2097 lol. 2007 sport

RonD · Jul 4, 2017

In 2007 Rangers, Ford used a Smart Junction Box(SJB) as the "Body Computer"
This controls all interior lights, and wipers and door locks and etc................
So any switch in the Cab goes to SJB and then IT will activate the relay to turn it on or off.

Cab Fuse box is part of the SJB in passenger side kick panel

So when a door is opened the "Door ajar" switch Grounds out, and that Ground is "sensed" by the SJB which then close the Interior Lamp Relay which turns on the light

Clear as mud, lol.

So you need to find the Green/Blue stripe wire(GRN/BLU) that goes up to the Dome light or at the SJB.
Then either added relay or your lights, I wouldn't add more than 2amps of lights without a relay

The Green/Blue stripe wire will have 12volts when dome light is activated by door(SJB) or switch

Diagram below

Jon305 · Jul 4, 2017

Ok so my next question is do I hook up the positive to one wire for the added lights to work when any door is opened and just ground the negative to chassis?

RonD · Jul 4, 2017

Yes, but you also need to calculate the AMPs the added lights will use.

Watts divided by Volts = AMPs

20watt light / 12volts = 1.6 AMPs

Most lights will have wattage, add them up and divide by 12
LED strips usually have "watts per foot", so add up the feet and divide by 12

If you will be adding more than 2 AMPs then you should use a Relay
Relay only adds .5 AMP to existing 12volt wire, and then you can add up to 30 AMPs or what ever relay is rated for

ericbphoto · Jul 4, 2017

Yes. The positive (usually red) wire for your lights will connect to the "green/blue stripe wire" that RonD mentioned, unless you are adding more than about 2 amps of lighting load. If it's more than 2 amps, then you should learn about using relays. The ground wire (usually black) can connect to the body of the truck. If using a body connection that isn't already being used as a ground, it would be beneficial to scrape away some paint around the screw so that the wire makes a good connection.

Here are a couple links to some good reading in the tech articles.

LINK 1

LINK 2

Jon305 · Jul 4, 2017

They 2 lights I added are 11mm 3 watt led bolts. I found the blue green/wire and connected positive to that and negative to chassis and they work perfectly. I am planning on adding a few to the back and will then run all of them through relay. Thank you guys for all the help. I really appreciate it

ericbphoto · Jul 4, 2017

Great. I'm glad you were successful.

In case you don't know...

In simple terms, Power is the product of voltage X current. Therefore, your 3 watt led's X 2 equals 6 watts. 6 watts divided by 12 volts equals 0.5 amps. So you added half an amp to the existing circuit.

Eric B

Jon305 · Jul 4, 2017

While I have a pretty good understanding of 12/24 volt systems and amperage. I'm still learning lol and only time i get to work with 12 volts is on my own truck and thanks again for the help guys. I'm going to save the diagrams

Interior lights

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