Which wires to tap for parking light and dome light circuits?

[kered424]

I want to add lights in the foot well area that will light up with the doors (dome light). In my previous car (Honda Fit), there were two wires I could tap into in a harness by the fuse box underneath the steering column. So I spent most of my afternoon with a volt-meter trying to find the right wires in this Civic, but I couldn't find the "dimming" wire. To the best of my knowledge, this is the harness that supplies power to the dome lights - unplugging this harness disrupts power to the dome lights.


I believe the red wire (pointed to by the arrow) is the +12V to the dome lights because both the front map lights and dome light receive power from red wires. There's a second purple wire in the dome light (yellow in the map lights) that controls the dimming of the lights, but I could not find either of these wires.

I was also unable to find the parking light wire. I found a gray wire in another harness that turns on with the parking lights, but after some investigation, this gray wire controlled the blue overhead ambient light. I would rather tap into the true parking light circuit rather than the overhead ambient light.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

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[ICanLiftACivicUp]

I would forgo trying to figure out which wire and just get something like this (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E5IGMUK...UTF8&colid=9J6DBQO48O5G&coliid=I1CUUAL8ETTP2L)

Plug it directly into the fuse box and preserve your car's harness.

This is what I may do, but the LED strip that goes with that extender is extremely bright.

 

[kered424]

I would forgo trying to figure out which wire and just get something like this (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E5IGMUK...UTF8&colid=9J6DBQO48O5G&coliid=I1CUUAL8ETTP2L)

Plug it directly into the fuse box and preserve your car's harness.

This is what I may do, but the LED strip that goes with that extender is extremely bright.

I actually already have an add-a-circuit, but the fuse for the interior lights and the parking lights are in the fuse box under the hood. There is not enough room to use an add-a-circuit because the wire that sticks out gets in the way

 

[ICanLiftACivicUp]

Oh, then I see your problem, haha. There are a few other things that come on when you open a door surely...

By the way, I was looking over the fuse locations in the manual, and the DRLs have two fuse locations - one in the engine bay, and another in the interior box. Those could work, although you can't control them with the same button/dimmer as the rest of the interior - you'd have to control it with the headlight stick on the steering wheel.

 

[Wrecks]

I want to add lights in the foot well area that will light up with the doors (dome light). In my previous car (Honda Fit), there were two wires I could tap into in a harness by the fuse box underneath the steering column. So I spent most of my afternoon with a volt-meter trying to find the right wires in this Civic, but I couldn't find the "dimming" wire. To the best of my knowledge, this is the harness that supplies power to the dome lights - unplugging this harness disrupts power to the dome lights.


I believe the red wire (pointed to by the arrow) is the +12V to the dome lights because both the front map lights and dome light receive power from red wires. There's a second purple wire in the dome light (yellow in the map lights) that controls the dimming of the lights, but I could not find either of these wires.

I was also unable to find the parking light wire. I found a gray wire in another harness that turns on with the parking lights, but after some investigation, this gray wire controlled the blue overhead ambient light. I would rather tap into the true parking light circuit rather than the overhead ambient light.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

I realize you asked this question awhile ago but College Hill Honda has instructions for the factory ambient light kit that may help you see where you can plug into the existing wiring harness.

http://www.collegehillshonda.com/instructions/civic/2016/4dr/ambientlightingkit.pdf

 

[kered424]

So I went ahead an just tapped into the gray wire I mentioned earlier. Now I have red LEDs that turn on with my parking lights/headlights

 

[inv4zn]

Do you mind sharing (a picture would greatly help) which gray wire you tapped into??

edit: Also, which wire was for the blue dome-light? I want to use that as well haha.

 

[kered424]

Do you mind sharing (a picture would greatly help) which gray wire you tapped into??

edit: Also, which wire was for the blue dome-light? I want to use that as well haha.

This is the gray wire I'm talking about. Sorry for the bad picture, there's not much room to work with down there. You want to locate the white harness next to the yellow harness. The gray wire is pin #2, which is pointed to by the arrow on the horrible representation that I drew on the side. This gray wire, as far as I can tell, controls the blue ambient light on the map light assembly. As far as the auto-dimming dome light circuit that turns on with the doors, I still haven't found that yet.

 

[lucashend]

Oh, then I see your problem, haha. There are a few other things that come on when you open a door surely...

By the way, I was looking over the fuse locations in the manual, and the DRLs have two fuse locations - one in the engine bay, and another in the interior box. Those could work, although you can't control them with the same button/dimmer as the rest of the interior - you'd have to control it with the headlight stick on the steering wheel.

Where did you find that DRL Fuse in the engine bay? I can't find it for the life of me

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