Fairy lights/clearance lights

[Matty14]

Does any one have any suggestions on how to wire up 3 lights one either side to the parkers circuit?

 

[stockies]

Carefully......?

 

[Matty14]

That would be a good idea
But I'm just wondering if I should solder the 3 lights together then get a wire to go from them to the Parker circuit at the tail lights and then heat shrink it or get a three way connector from jaycar or is there another suggestion and would I need a fuse

 

[stockies]

Yes, please use a fuse.
Are the lights LED's? is so, yes you can wire them up in series (one after another) if not, wire them in parallel.
Power from the parker circuit (tapped in and SOLDERED) and same for ground.


Also, you could use a relay to trigger the lights, would be a better way of doing it.

 

[Matty14]

Yes there LEDs
What you mean by relay to trigger?

 

[Nut Kracker]

You can do it this way.
The park light wire is brown 12volt+
The last sentence in this picture is incorrect, so disregard it.
You don't need a relay for leds, as they don't draw a lot of current.
But this is an option if you feel confident.
If not, do it the way as described at the bottom of the page below.


Or just wire the positive side of the led's to the brown park light wire and the negative wire of the led's to earth.

 

[Tasmaniak]

You cant put them in series, doing that would require 36 volts. Parallel.

 

[Nut Kracker]

Agree. Parallel. Unless your 3 lights are 4 volts each.
Here is a picture of parallel wiring for your reference, if you're not sure.

 

[Matty14]

They range from 9-36V
Why does parallel draw more power?

 

[Nut Kracker]

When you say they range from 9-36V, do you mean that is their voltage range? i.e. can be used from 9-36 volts?
Or do you have different leds with different voltages?

Parallel doesn't draw anymore power.
If you have more than 1 light, say at 12 volts for a 12 volt system, they have to be wired in parallel as pictured above, so as to get 12 volts to all lights.
If they are wired in series, you would need 36 volts to power all 3. (3x12v=36v)
You can think of series wiring as multiple lights made up to make one light at the required voltage (eg 12v).
In the pic below you can see one wire jumping from one light to the other...N to the negative side of the battery and P to the positive side.
So really, those three individual lights become one.
If you have 2v lights, you would need 6 lights to make up 12v. 4v lights you would need 3 and so on. (6x2v=12 and 3x4v=12)

The only problem with series wiring is, that if one of the lights goes out, the whole lot will go out because the circuit has been broken.
Just like those damn Christmas lights.

This site will explain it better for you. Series and parallel circuits - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Series wiring example.