ROAM Side Steps light wiring (or any step lights with door open illumination.)

[Tl5glenn]

Does anyone know do they have these lights for the roam running boards in multi color or RGB style?

Thanks

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[TTEChris]

Does anyone know do they have these lights for the roam running boards in multi color or RGB style?

Thanks

I've seen different color, and dual color on Amazon. Not sure about RGB. Just search for "eagle eye LED"

I considered doing Red to match my Jeeps theme.

 

[18RubiJLU]

So all the LEDs that came with the steps are dead now (one is still flickering), how are your holding up? Any good replacement ones?

 

[TTEChris]

So all the LEDs that came with the steps are dead now (one is still flickering), how are your holding up? Any good replacement ones?

I installed different lights from day one since I happened to get one that was bad. I went with a set of Amazon, and while they all work the black housing have all turned bronze/copper.
I'm installing a set of Oznium LED's for a customer next week. I installed them in my Artec Fender chop kit and have was really impressed with the build quality, light output, and wire thickness. They even make them in a full stainless version which I considered, but we decided that was overkill and just went with the aluminum finish. The only downside(other than price) is they are only available in a 11mm bolt diameter so I will have to drill the holes larger and paint them so they don't rust over time.

 

[SMUWILLD]

So, I installed these over the weekend. Very happy with them. I have no real automotive or electrical experience. This is all very doable.

Some thoughts I have not seen posted here:

I did no soldering. I used army field splicing with heat shrink. Otherwise, I used crimp connectors. Seems strong enough connection.

I tapped into the dome lights in the footwell for power. Works fine for 4 LEDs. One note: in the pictures, somebody is using a blue 14-16 gauge T-Tap. The wires are smaller than that. I would buy red 18-22 gauge T-Taps off amazon for a better connection.

Test every light multiple times during the wiring and install process. I simply touched the wires to a 9 volt battery. It provides enough power to run 4 LEDs in order to test your connections along the way.

Invest in a quality self adjusting wire stripper.

The dome light & wire on the passenger side is secured with 2 screws. Unscrew them to give yourself enough room to tap into the wires.

On the drivers side, the light just snaps on. It will come off with a little bit of force to give yourself space to work. Afterwards, just snap it back.

Question: how do you guys get the wire to the interior. I used the drain plug and went under the carpet. I would like a better solution.

 

[SeanD]

So, I installed these over the weekend. Very happy with them. I have no real automotive or electrical experience. This is all very doable.

Some thoughts I have not seen posted here:

I did no soldering. I used army field splicing with heat shrink. Otherwise, I used crimp connectors. Seems strong enough connection.

I tapped into the dome lights in the footwell for power. Works fine for 4 LEDs. One note: in the pictures, somebody is using a blue 14-16 gauge T-Tap. The wires are smaller than that. I would buy red 18-22 gauge T-Taps off amazon for a better connection.

Test every light multiple times during the wiring and install process. I simply touched the wires to a 9 volt battery. It provides enough power to run 4 LEDs in order to test your connections along the way.

Invest in a quality self adjusting wire stripper.

The dome light & wire on the passenger side is secured with 2 screws. Unscrew them to give yourself enough room to tap into the wires.

On the drivers side, the light just snaps on. It will come off with a little bit of force to give yourself space to work. Afterwards, just snap it back.

Question: how do you guys get the wire to the interior. I used the drain plug and went under the carpet. I would like a better solution.

Great suggestions. I've held off on installing the lights as I keep seeing others are having high failure rates. I bought aftermarket LEDs on Amazon but they are also cheap, so I'm considering bailing on the lights install indefinitely now.

I asked a similar question on getting the wires to the interior. @boogie said he just came in through the firewall on both sides (I believe you can access both easily and just use a coathanger or fish tape), which should bring you right into the footwell where the lights are.

 

[TTEChris]

Great suggestions. I've held off on installing the lights as I keep seeing others are having high failure rates. I bought aftermarket LEDs on Amazon but they are also cheap, so I'm considering bailing on the lights install indefinitely now.

I asked a similar question on getting the wires to the interior. @boogie said he just came in through the firewall on both sides (I believe you can access both easily and just use a coathanger or fish tape), which should bring you right into the footwell where the lights are.

Coat hanger works great at getting the wire through the firewall. If you guy don't mind drilling the steps, get a set of Oznium flush mount LED's. They are only available in a 11mm bolt size(factory holes are 10mm) but they have a 3' cable that makes wiring them much easier, and if you go with the stainless option they are IP68 rated. The aluminum set I installed for a customer were IP67 which should be sufficient, but the stainless option is nice to have.

 

[BWWJL]

@TTEChris , Did you buy an 11mm still not or go a little bigger w standard bit?

 

[TTEChris]

@TTEChris , Did you buy an 11mm still not or go a little bigger w standard bit?

I didn't have any metric bits laying around so I went ahead and purchased their 11mm bit when I ordered the lights. Don't make the same mistake I did, use a good quality 7/16" drill bit(What I ended up using, since the other bit broke on the first hole I drilled). I painted the holes to prevent rust and let it sit for 24 hours prior to installing the new lights.

 

[BWWJL]

I didn't have any metric bits laying around so I went ahead and purchased their 11mm bit when I ordered the lights. Don't make the same mistake I did, use a good quality 7/16" drill bit(What I ended up using, since the other bit broke on the first hole I drilled). I painted the holes to prevent rust and let it sit for 24 hours prior to installing the new lights.

Thanks! And, thanks for reading into my iPhone corrected / garbled post

 

[RubyToBe]

So, I installed these over the weekend. Very happy with them. I have no real automotive or electrical experience. This is all very doable.

Some thoughts I have not seen posted here:

I did no soldering. I used army field splicing with heat shrink. Otherwise, I used crimp connectors. Seems strong enough connection.

I tapped into the dome lights in the footwell for power. Works fine for 4 LEDs. One note: in the pictures, somebody is using a blue 14-16 gauge T-Tap. The wires are smaller than that. I would buy red 18-22 gauge T-Taps off amazon for a better connection.

Test every light multiple times during the wiring and install process. I simply touched the wires to a 9 volt battery. It provides enough power to run 4 LEDs in order to test your connections along the way.

Invest in a quality self adjusting wire stripper.

The dome light & wire on the passenger side is secured with 2 screws. Unscrew them to give yourself enough room to tap into the wires.

On the drivers side, the light just snaps on. It will come off with a little bit of force to give yourself space to work. Afterwards, just snap it back.

Question: how do you guys get the wire to the interior. I used the drain plug and went under the carpet. I would like a better solution.

Happy new year! Quick confirmation question: for each side, all four black wires (one for each light) get twisted together into one connection right? And then all four red (or white) wires twisted into a second connection? Then it’s just to run these through firewall into footwell light where we also t-tap each one into a wire? IIIRC from like 35 years ago I believe this was called wiring in parallel but I might be mistaken. Lol

 

[RubyToBe]

It takes me 4-6 hours from start to finish taking breaks along the way. Make sure you test all your LED's before wiring them in a series. Most of the time for me is spent behind the steps like @Dynomite1371 mentioned. Dealing with those tiny wires can be a real pain/time consuming. Soldering/shrink wrapping all the connectors/wires/etc all takes a good amount of time(Not hard work, just time consuming.)
Mounting the steps, wiring the relay, and running the trigger wire takes very little time compared to wiring up all those LED's behind the steps.
Running the trigger wire is a lot easier if you have a small frame. I'm 6'4 230+ and getting in between that seat/console to feed the trigger wire is a real pain.
The lights do come one when you unlock the doors... basically anytime you see your dome light on, the lights will be on if wired like I mentioned(You can manually turn them on by turning the dome light rocker all the way up, but then the dome light will be on as well.)
The connectors you listed should work fine.

You can probably wire them on the Jeep, but for me it is MUCH easier setting them on a table/stand and wiring them up that way.



You probably have the trigger wire tapped into the wrong wire in the footwell like mentioned above. Mine will stay on for a few seconds with the engine running, but then shut off when the dome light switches off.

@TTEChris hey man when you say “test the leds before you wire them in “series”...do you actually daisy chain them positive to negative like a true series? Or do you twist all the blacks and all the reds together as in what I thought was called parallel? Thank you for clarification!

 

[RubyToBe]

@SMUWILLD @boogie few quick questions please? So you guys didn’t use any separate relay, fuse, grounding, or battery connection? If my understanding is correct, you twisted all the positives and all the negatives of each step’s four lights into one, then used wire to extend that under the hood through the firewall on each side, and tapped both the positive and negative wires into the respective footwell dome light wires on each side (color of these for a Rubicon would be greatly appreciated!) Any issues w anything since doing this? I am about to do this and want to make sure my understanding is correct. Thank you both so much!

 

[TTEChris]

@TTEChris hey man when you say “test the leds before you wire them in “series”...do you actually daisy chain them positive to negative like a true series? Or do you twist all the blacks and all the reds together as in what I thought was called parallel? Thank you for clarification!

Just test each LED with a positive/negative. I have a jumper box that I use, but even a 9v battery should do the trick. I do it before wiring them all together just to make sure I dont have a bad light.

 

[RubyToBe]

Just test each LED with a positive/negative. I have a jumper box that I use, but even a 9v battery should do the trick. I do it before wiring them all together just to make sure I dont have a bad light.

@TTEChris thanks but I meant for the actual install...are you twisting all positives of all four lights together on each side for one “total” positive connection?

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