If you have wanted to add lighting to the interior of your Box and have chosen to go the Cold Cathode route (which I think is the best) here are the directions to wire them up to the 12 volt system in your Box.
I purchase all of my cold cathodes on line from computer case modding sites. The prices are great and you can get just about any color you might need. The cold cathodes are brighter than the LED lights in my opinion.
Disclaimer: As always, if you screw it up don't come crying to me. Take your time, follow the directions and if you have questions ask me.
Here are the cold cathodes (cc's) fresh from the UPS man. Each of these kits contains two lamps, a converter and all the wiring required to hook them up in your computer. We, however, are not going to wire them up in our computer so we will need to do a little customizing in order for them to work in a 12 volt auto system.
Cut the zip ties and separate the three individual parts, lamps, converter and wiring which includes a PCI switch.
Since we are not going to use the lamps for a computer we will need to remove the power/ground leads for the converter from the PCI switch. Find the red lead that goes from the converter plug to the PCI switch and cut it. Then locate the black ground lead connected to the Molex connector and cut it.
When you have cut both wires this is what you will be left with.
The remainder of the wiring is not needed for our mod so you can either throw it away or save it in your ever growing junk drawer.
Here are the three components we will be using. The lamps, power/ground lead and the lamp leads.
This is not done in the order of installation, rather to show you how to prepare the items for installation. The red/black lead for the power and ground plugs into the single port on one end of the converter.
The white leads for the lamps plug into the dual ports on the other end of the converter.
Once all of the leads have been plugged in your set up will look like this.
The open ends of the red/black leads will be connected to a power and ground source to provide juice for the lamps.
That is the basic wiring mod for cold cathode lamps. There are some things to keep in mind as you wire these into your vehicle.
1. Don't connect the lamps to any power source without a fuse and a switch. The cc lamps will drain your battery much faster than the LED's.
2. Be sure your polarity is correct before connecting red/black leads. If you reverse them the converter will blow and your lamps won't light.
3. The white leads that come with the cc lamps are not to be lengthened. If you extend the wires the lamps will dim or not light at all. Mount the converter as close to the lamp as you can to avoid extending the leads. One exception is the 4 inch cold cathodes. You can extend the wire leads by about six inches and still get good quality light from the lamps.
I hope this helps explain the process for using computer lighting in your Box. If you have any questions feel free to PM me.
