Blue’s Blue Bed Blaster LED Lights
I had an idea to have an awesomely light up bed at night. I have an extang solid fold tonneau cover and at night, it is dark in the bed. I saw led bed lights in the LMK catalog that gave me the original idea. I thought it would be cool to have them triggered when I dropped the tail gate. I had the great idea, now I had to implement it… not always the best since I’m a mechanical guy… not an electrical guy. I posted the idea earlier in this thread (
http://www.fordraptorforum.com/f81/led-bed-lights-15005/#post246150) and McManus suggested an electronic reed switch. Also talking with Nosbusa, he recommended the use of a relay. The thread on the relay discussion is here
http://www.fordraptorforum.com/f12/blue-15911/#post247602.
I purchased the blue bed blaster led kit from
www.bluewaterled.com. They typically sell LEDs for boats, but do offer some truck bed options. I knew they would be bright and waterproof and that is what I was after.
This is not the exact kit, but looks similar to what I got.
Working with Nosbusa, we searched for a constant power at the rear of the truck. We could not find a suitable constant power to run the lights. Therefore I ran a hot wire from the battery terminal. I was able to run the wire through the large frame of the truck. I added a waterproof inline fuse holder for a 10 amp fuse near the battery.
I also installed a relay behind the rear tail light. The relay was really easy to use once I understood how to wire it. It’s just a junction box that allows you to run your wires to and have local control over them. I also wanted to add a kill switch so if I was leaving the tailgate down, it wouldn’t drain the battery. I added the kill switch (which came with the kit) to the line between the magnetic reed switch and the relay.
Here are some of the parts that I used
Drilling was required to mount the relay and switches. I was able to tuck the relay behind the rear passenger tail light. I was surprised to see Texas dirt under there from the TRR.
When mounting the magnetic reed switch, I had to have them located relatively close to each other so that the lights would turn off. 0.25” to be exact, even though the switch stated it would be good for up to 2 inches. I used painters tape to hold the switches in place while I tested different locations. I found that this location worked the best.
Although I had to mount the tail gate switch rotated 90 degrees from it’s normal position. Since it's a magnet, it didn’t make much of a difference. When the magnetic polls align, the switch is open and the lights turn off. When the polls are away from each other, the switch is closed and the lights turn on. With the switch 90 degrees out, there are two polls that close the switch as the gate opened. Therefore, I had to mount it such that only one poll activated the switch. Otherwise when I would open the tailgate, the lights would blink once before staying on. It took a while to perfect the exact location, but once I got it working properly, I marked the mounting holes. Then drilled and mounted them into the bed and gate.
The LED lights have a sticky tape side to them, along with the on/off (kill) switch that made mounting the LED's fairly easy.
From there it was good to go. Here are the final pics.
Note, for those of you with the stripper pole, these would make great stage lights!
