Topic: Dome Light

[PSBarton]

I am having a bit of trouble installing a sound bar...The soundbar has an integrated dome light that if wired correctly will turn on when the door is opened or the dimmer switch is turned on.    I ran the soundbar switch wire to the door switch and I spliced the soundbar power wire to an always on wire running to the stero.

The soundbar light does not turn on when the door is opened or the dimmer switch is used.  The light will turn on if I manually click the soundbar light on when the key is in the accessory position.

Any help would be appreciated since I am obviously not electrically inclined.  :?

-PSBarton
95 YJ

[Jeffy]

You have it wired to a 'keyed' +12v source.  The easiest thing to do is to use the harness and plug it tnto the dash harness but it doesn't sound like you've done that.  On the passenger side, up by the speaker is a large plug that's not connected to anything.  It should have 6 wires going into it.  4 are for teh speakers.  2 are for the dome light.  You could wire it into there with no problems.

The other option is to bypass the harness altogether and just wire the light to the door switch.  I forget if the door switches are grounds or not though. It would be easy to check in either case.

[PSBarton]

Its the same power source that powers the stereo clock and memory.  I guess I don't understand how the stereo clock/memory gets power all the time but the dome light only gets power when the key is on.  

I spliced the wire labeled "Remote On" which is supposed to be the dome light switch wire to the single door light switch wire thinking that when the door opened that the dome light would be activated.  It did not work.

[lanulos89]

the easiest thing to do is just wire it directly to the battery, in the longrun, when you are ridng w/ the doors off, the lights won't be on, u'll just have to reach back and switch the lights on , not that hard.,  well at least thats wut i do.

[Jeffy]

Well, the wiring is screwed up.  If you want the light to work with the interior and dash lights then you'll want to wire the light to the pre-existing harness or tap into the wiring coming off the light itself.  Otherwise, it will not work with the dimmer switch.  You'd need to leave the light on for it to work also.

If the dome light only lights up with the key in 'Aux' or with it 'On' then it's a keyed power.  There there should be 2 +12v going to the stereo.  One is constant and the other is keyed.  (Personally, I wouldn't not wire anything to the stereo harness since you can easily overload the wirings and it can get rather messy. )

Now if you run the line to the battery or to the fuse panel, the light will only work when you turn it on or off from the switch at the light itself.

[Mozman68]

I thought the "remote on" wire was supposed to go to an amplifier so it would be turned on when the radio is turned on??

The wire for the radio memory is not the same as the one that would power a dome light when the door is opened as the radio does not actually go on until the key is turned....is that right??

There's only so many choices...like Jeffy said, one of the wires running up to the bar should be it.  Did you not have a sound bar before??  Replacing one??

Which one did you get?

[moerl8088]

the radio has two power sources, one thats keyed, and one thats an always on.  if you've ever put in a cd player the red wire I believe is the power that comes on with the key, the yellow one is the one that provides power all the time.  I'm not sure what color the wires are for going into the back of the stereo, but I'm thinking you could run it off of there if you had your heart set on using the same power thats going to the stereo, though in the long run I would just follow a different process mentioned above.  I might even wire it into its own block on the fuse box and use a mini fuse.  but its up to you, there are probably a dozen different ways to wire up the dome light so it will work, so its not as though if one doesn't work out the best, you don't have more options.
good luck

[PSBarton]

Thanks for all of your help.  I decided to wire it directly to the battery.  By the way it is made by Vertically Driven Products.  It mounted pretty nicely and it matches the spice interior of my YJ very well.  Sound is decent out of its six speakers and the dome lights are a nice feature.  The price doesn't break the bank either.  You can find them on Ebay for $129.

[lanulos89]

i have the xact same soundbar i think but mine is black.  Just replace the woofers in the bar and it makes it sound a lot better.  only reason i got mine tho was i bought it off a buddy for like 50 bucks.