Okay, so after many hours of research and reading, I have a pretty good understanding of how to wire various accessories for my truck. I still have a few questions, though. I'm planning on installing recon big rig ice lights, and in the instructions they say to tap into the courtesy light fuse. I am wondering, how do I know the maximum amperage the courtesy light circuit can handle? When would I need to use a relay to get either direct power or be able to tap into a constant 12v? I know for larger amperage things like off road lights, obviously a relay is necessary. But what about LED lighting accessories which require significantly less power? Thanks!

 

leds can run off basically anything since they require so little power. i believe you would be safe without a relay and just wire like the instructions say to. once your done post some pictures, i want something similar just for the white lights when i open my door.

 

Great, that's what I was kind if thinking. Thanks. I'll definately put up some pics soon, I have these and a couple more mods to finish first though!

 

If you manually go into your fuse box, and find the courtesy lamp fuse, you can see the amperage it can handle before it blows. I'd believe that it would be 10-20A, but LEDs draw about 30 milliamps each, so you would need A LOT to blow a fuse.

 

Awesome! Thanks! I'm assuming the courtesy lights don't use near 10-20 amps either?

 

Keep in mind the fuse for an item is following the 80% rule, which means the load of the circuit is 80% of the fuse amount ( rounded up ).

This means that a 10A fuse is sized to carry an 8A load.

No clue what the Recon item draws, there are no specs on the Recon page that I saw.

Could be fine, could not be, depends on how much additional load you are adding to the circuit.
As an example, the Truck-Lite 54 LED backup lamps are 1A each light head. Not too sure on the LED sizing when compared to the Recon product to give you an idea if this is high or low. The 62" ( 68" ) could be 1 / 1.25 A each side ??

 

well a normal 194 will use ~2A and there are a number of them, combined with a safety margin, I'm just guessing.

 

Alright. I'm also using all LED's in the interior, so I'm assuming those lower the amperage used as well?

 

Yes, tremendously