Thanks for the reply guys. You guys are definitely a lot of help for a newbie like me! So I bought two 5ft lights (to use as guinea pigs) and the one final 20ft lights that I'll install in my Jeep and 360k and 390k resistors. I tried to hook one of the 5ft light packs up yesterday but with no luck. I cut the wires from the board, striped and wrapped them together, soldered one 390K resistor to them and tried to touch the end of the resistor to the metal where the dome light bulb sits and no light. I'm getting a bit frustrated but still working towards getting this projector to work!
After looking at the board, I noticed that the wires were hooked up marked with
L+ and
L- and the battery connections were mark
V+ and
V-. I didn't notice that before, so I'm guessing that
L mean "Lights" and
V means "Voltages"? I've provided pics of both the 5ft and 20ft lights boards if that will help. After noticing that, I separated the wires, soldered one 390K resistor on both wires, tired to touch the metal again at both ends of the bulb and still nothing. Could it mean the lights won't light up while touching the metal? Does it have to be directly on a hot wire?
After a little digging, I was able to find two PDF files of wiring diagrams for 2000 Jeep Cherokee, or at least something close to that year. But I'm still not familiar on how to read the diagrams properly. If it'll help, I can post pics of the pages that show the dome lighting wiring.
The little circuit to which the batteries attach is often an MCU that controls a program of "off/flashing/six-hours-on-then-eighteen-off"
A workable hack is to connect a USB wall-wart in place of the batteries, with maybe a series 1N4xxx diode for luck.
In a vehicle, you could use one of those cigar-lighter charge adaptor. In fact, the slight brightness variations might make for a more 'galaxy-like' presentation.
As for making the lights come on/go off slowly: that's going to be work
Thanks for replying Wade. For what I'm trying to do, I'd rather not hook up the lights to a cigar-lighter charge adaptor. I want to have the lights come on when the doors open, just the like the dome light. Maybe instead of trying to hook up the lights to the dome lights, I try hooking them up to the Door Jamb Switch wires? I thought of the idea of maybe instead of trying to hook the LED lights directly, maybe hook it up with the circuit board still attached? Get some wire and extend the
+ and
- from where the batteries are on the circuit board?
I apologize for all the questions too guys X( I haven't worked electronics besides guitar wiring.
The 5ft Battery Pack
The 20ft Battery Pack