I recently installed fog lights to the brackets on my Extang tonneau. Its a fulltilt. The tarp tonneau lifts up, so I attached them ($22 at Wal Mart) where the compression joint thingy is attached to. Sorry, thats as good as I can describe it. I would like to tap into the light source for my licence plate. The fogs light come with a 5 amp fuse.

What I am concerned about, is will this cause an overload? I dont want to run the wire from the bed of my truck to the battery. I spent 2 hours trying to figure out how to do this, and feel that a tap in to my license plate light would be much easier. I know that for the fog lights in my bed to work, I will have to turn the parking lights on, and then turn the switch to the fog lights in the bed on.

Is there another electrical source near my bumper that is always hot? How do, or should I tap in? I did do some soldering to extend the lights wiring, and feel competent in doing more. Will this create electrical shorts? I tapped into my fuse box for a CB several years ago on my 00 f150...my automatic lights, and disengaging my overdrive never worked again. Your help and guidance is greatly appreciated.

 

If you have the factory tow kit installed, you can use the battery charge circuit on the 7 pin adapter, this is hot with the key in the Run ( and accessory ? ) positions.

If you want to have the fog lamps on with the parking lamps only, use a relay with the coil to the parking lamps, and use the 7 pin circuit to drive the lamps.

Adding that much load to your factory parking lamp circuit is not a good idea, in my mind. With the 80% fuse rule, and a 5 A fuse, that is a 4 A load being added. Too much, the coil is about 0.10 A load to the parking lamp circuit.

I would think a switch ( either mechanical or tilt ) would be a better option for turning the fog lamps on under the cover, but that is my suggestion. YMMV.

 

what kind of power are they putting out, most fog lamps include a relay that requires a power wire to battery, one to ground, one to the light itself and a wire inside for the switch, with an additional wire going from the switch to a alternate power source telling the light to come on(intended for your headlamp)
if its like this you need to run the red wire from your relay to your battery, and a wire from your switch to an alternate power source(ie headlamp that tells the light to come on) for this you should be able to just tap into any positive wire because all it does is tell the light to come on
as for the actual power wire it should be run directly to the battery to make sure you have enough power to run them
i hope this all makes sense???

 

I like the idea of running it to the 7 pin adapter. Which wire is the battery charge, and how would you tap into it?

Your response makes me queezy about running it to the parking lamp. I will not do that.

The fog lamps do have a switch (on/off). I just need to know where to tap into a hot wire, one that could handle the fog lamps. They were designed to be run to the battery in the front of the truck. I am using them under my tonneau, and want to be able to turn them off and on. I dont want them always being on. I bought them because they were inexpensive ($22) and they would give off a good amount of light.

 

The trailer battery feed is the Orange wire in the 7 pin adapter. You can use your preferred method of splicing into this on the back side of the 7 pin round.

https://www.f150online.com/galleries...028-149221.jpg

This is Hot in the RUN position only, not in the accessory position.

Some use the T-Tap solder method, others scotch locks, or crimp T-Taps.

For my backup lights on my truck I did the solder Tap / saddle method, due to where the splice is located ( by the tires under the back of the truck.

Search for Tap soldering for the view of this connection type, if you are not familiar with it.

http://www.mmxpress.com/technical/connections.htm

As for the on/off, the switch and relay could be used a few different ways.

My thought, was to the use the switch powering the coil on the relay, and get the power for the switch from the parking lamps.
This gives you a) The fog lamps could only be on with the truck in the run position, and b) the fog lamps could only be on with the parking lamps.
Don't know if this is the function you are looking for or not.

 

Running a wire from the battery is much easier for the do-it-yourself-er than trying to successfully tap into the existing wiring-you proved that when you f'ed up your old truck. Put a fuse holder within 18 inches of the battery, but don't put the fuse in yet-that way the wire is dead until you get it run. If you run across the firewall, you can go right back along the driver's side frame rail, and zip tie it every two feet or so to the brake lines right along the frame rail, run it up the inside wall (pop off the plastic bed cap) and out into the bed. Run your ground wire back down to the frame also.

Even though they are POS $22 lights, I'd be worried about the heat they generate if left on. Either getting too close to something in the bed, or getting bumped by cargo (and then pushed into the vinyl). Would turn them from fog lights into smoke lights...and the lights would be causing the smoke.

 

Very good info, thanks for your help.