boot light not 12v?

[tyrefryer]

Hi, i was connecting an led strip in place of the boot light and it wasnt lighting up bright as it should.
Bought a new one, same thing.
Tested wires with a multimeter and it gives 8V between the two wires but 12V between positive and a ground source so im guessing the ground wire is somehow at 4 or so volts.
I think this is a common problem cos with almost all the commodores iv owned the boot light didnt work and when i go to pull it out to look it touches the bare metal on the way out and comes on.

I tried solving this problem by earthing it somewhere else but the boot light switch must be on the -ve wire.
Is there any reason this happens and any way around it or to fix it?

 

[D-Rich]

whats your battery reading?

 

[DANNY8]

What about if ya hook the light itself up to a relay, then power the relay direct, and use the boot switch to earth the relay?

Or maybe mount a new switch, Narva should make something that will work.

 

[tufwgz]

yeh check out some Narva items, i would say that they've got something out there for that, you may need something like a transformer between the wires....i know with my R6 bike when i was installing LED indicators i had to put a transformer between the wires because the flasher rate was too quick, and the transformer basically slowed that rate down to the standard speed.....so there will be some sort of an adaption out there....maybe talk to your local auto electrician...they'll tell you straight..

 

[tyrefryer]

i think its more just something to do with the way holden wire up the boot light, i bet many people who have an intermitent boot light would find that theres only 8V between the wires which is the reason why the leds are so dim in mine
Think il just trace the wires and see where the extra current is coming into it.
Im guessing that with the boot closed the switch is at 12V and with it open it somehow earths to get to zero volts so could be the switch that doesnt have a solid earth...

 

[Verynice]

What i did was piggy back the LED wires onto the stock light cover pins by threading the wires through the back.

So pull the light socket out and let it dangle, then thread the led strip wires through the back and out the light cover hole and join them up. Now you should be able to clip the light socket back in with all wires tucked away.

And then you should have yourself a boot light

 

[tyrefryer]

What i did was piggy back the LED wires onto the stock light cover pins by threading the wires through the back.

So pull the light socket out and let it dangle, then thread the led strip wires through the back and out the light cover hole and join them up. Now you should be able to clip the light socket back in with all wires tucked away.

And then you should have yourself a boot light

Hey mate i did exactly that, only problem was it lit up bright for 30 seconds then went dim, when i connected a new set they were still dim, tested the connector which usually connect to the boot light to get an 8V reading...

I thought this might have been a common problem just cos its happened before where the boot light doesnt always turn on in other commodores iv had. Always seemed like when the angled bit in the light contacted the bare metal it would then light up again as it had a proper ground....kinda hard to explain :S

 

[Verynice]

Ah yeah very odd then. I made the mistake of chopping off the boot light all together and just wired up to LED strips, bad move. Didn't work at all, so i did what i said in my previous post and its worked a treat.

So not too sure whats up with yours there man hmmm

 

[tyrefryer]

Yeh il be rippping the whole boot apart to find out whats going on if i have to but when i do il let you know for anyone else who comes across this problem cos im sure its fairly common with the VT-VX boot light setup