Forevermore

So currently I have a white LED strip below my headlights. Previous owner put it on. It has a switch that turns in on and off inside the car. I wanted to wire it so instead of that switch powering it, it is off until I turn the cars parking lights on, then they will come on. But also, when I select the turn signals, the strip that corresponds to that side will blink as well. Is there any way to do this? I'm not too electronic savvy, so any diagram or wiring help would be appreciated.

JamesD31

It will be hard to have both. Mainly because if you have the parking lights on, and go to turn, you are then not going to get the flashing you probably want.

Easiest way is to follow the positive wire (the one that will look like it goes towards the dash aka the switch) and instead connect that wire to the positive wire for the turn signal (there are 3 wires, one is the one that will do the flashing) and/or to the parking light (there should be only two wires).

If you want to do both, you might have to go and look for some type of switch that sits in between both of those other wires and wire it up to that and hook those wires from the switch to the lights.

Soldier

Easy to wire it in to the parking lights. You will just need to disconnect the current wiring in place and jumper the positive/negative terminals from the Parker lights into the ones for the LEDs
Polarity will be crucial as LEDs only allow current flow through one direction

In terms of having them flash with the turning signals, this is harder to achieve. In Australia I'm pretty sure that turn signals/indicators need to be orange. Obviously this could be different in your part of the world.

This will be really difficult to set up using the single coloured LED strip. To do it you will need to DIY a controller circuit for the DRL that knows when the turn signals are activated and switches the mode of its output to flashing. When the turn signals are off the controller reverts back to always on. (Ie no flash)

There is something called switchback LEDs which allow for dual coloured setting, white for Parker yellow for turning.

Switchback would be cleaner, but would still require a controller to run correctly on RX8
Without the controller the best you can do is have it alternate between white and yellow during signalling.

Soldier

If you connect both the turn and parkers together you will get funny behaviour.
Like parkers flashing, and/turn signals on when not in use


Edit: take a look at this thread
http://mx5cartalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=51213

Doesn't actually produce too many answers in terms of the controller but it reinforces the idea and he's done some awesome work

JamesD31

You don't need a special controller for turn signals. The way turn signals work is the controller already that goes to the positive wire to the turn signal is actually already pulsing.

I did this by putting in a strip of orange LED's behind my side mirrors and just ran the positive to the positive on the turn signal in the headlights and the negative to any negative and it acts the same as the headlight turn signal.

Soldier

^ definitely don't need a controller for that, (jumpering another turn signa using positive and negative terminalsl)
But for using the one strip of LED as both DRL and turn signals you will. That's what OP wanted.

JamesD31

And I agreed in my first post, but your other post was a bit confusing to me so was just clarifying.