Posted 23 May 2020 - 08:21 PM
Starting to wire in the ceiling lights. Yesterday I spent quite a bit of time figuring out why the dome lights wouldn't work, turned out that the front light unit wasn't quite plugged in all the way and the master on/off switch that is built into the front dome light was defaulting to the off position. The Mercedes dome light's work off manipulating the ground vs the power going to the lights. There is a computer controlled SAM module (Signal Acquisition Module) that controls the dome lights via the door switch, the SAM module can be sensitive to loads and can fault out if the loads are outside of the parameters. I temporarily hooked up the LED touch lights to the factory dome light wires to test the system and it all worked good...hopefully no SAM errors will show up down the road with the LED lights in the circuit but if they do it's an easy wiring job to change again.
I'll be using 3 Double Pole Double Throw switchs to give me power options on the LED lights. There are 6 lights total and 3 switches, 2 lights per switch giving me different options for each individual zone. With the switches I will be able to set the lights to come on with the door switches powered off the starting battery (Just like the factory lighting), manually turn a light bank off or manually turn them on via the Aux battery. The lights themselves are touch activated and you can hold your finger on them to dim the light. The lights have a memory and will start in the last used position so if you have them all on dim they will start back up on dim etc.
Supplies Used:
*Genuine Marine LED Lights - Available on Amazon Here: CLICK HERE
*DPDT Switches - Available on Amazon Here: CLICK HERE
*Titan Heat Shrink Electrical Crimp Tool - Available on Amazon Here: CLICK HERE
*Marine Heat Shrink Electrical Connectors - Available on Amazon Here: CLICK HERE
*Brother Heat Shrink Label Maker - Available on Amazon Here: CLICK HERE
*Marine Heat Shrink Tubing - Available on Amazon Here: CLICK HERE
*SAE Connectors - Available on Amazon Here: CLICK HERE
*Pre-Tinned Marine Wire - Available on Amazon Here: CLICK HERE
Here's a shot of the Genuine Marine lights and switches installed in the ceiling for reference.
Here's a rough drawing that shows how each set of lights/switch will be wired.
Adding some grommets for abrasion protection on the back side of the lights, nice snug fit!
I like using marine crimp connectors on all my projects, they have built in heat shrink with a glue on the inside and hold extremely well. If you are using marine connectors it takes a special crimp tool to avoid cutting the heat shrink when you crimp. The tool is pretty inexpensive and well worth having in your kit.
Hit it with a heat gun and it's a sealed solid connection.
Another thing I always do on my projects is label all the wiring with printed heat shrink tubing. The extra effort up front pays for itself down the road when your trouble shooting, removing/re-installing panels etc. The costs of labeling machines have come way down in recent years and they are now very affordable. I'm using the Brother PT-E550W Label Machine. This unit works great and there are plenty of generic cartridges available on eBay for about $10 per cartridge. The heat shrink is available in many different sizes and as a bonus you can make standard labels as well :-).
I'm running all black wire in this section so I placed a small piece of red heat shrink to help identify the polarity in addition to the labeling.
Factory Dome light wiring, Red is constant pwr, Brown/Blue is switched ground. Battery is getting low, right after this pic I hooked up the portable solar panel to top off the batt.
Prepping the factory light wiring to attach to the 3 way switch.
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