i bought a box with neons installed in them, requires a 12v power source, i was wondering where the best place to pull that from would be, any specific wires i would use and what not, cause last time i wired a neon the thing blew within a day, thanks for the help all

 

The same place that you get the power fro the amp

 

you can use the same power source that triggers your amps but that isnt always best to have big neons on in your car all of the time especially if the law is a pain like it is here in houston. I had some at one time and had them wired to a independent toggle switch make sure you use an inline fuse as well for safety reasons. so that you can just trun them on when your cruisng the cool spots

 

you can hook them to the remote wire off of your deck/amp but personally i would hook it to its own toggle switch and mount it somewhere, there are times when you dont want your car to be the centre of attention

 

hook the ciggy lighter up to a wire and run it to the lights or run a custom switch.

Nate

 

If your not using a relay, doing it this way is a great way to kill the HU. Want to buy a new HU?

 

as long as you dont use a whole wack of neons you should be ok...they dont draw very much current at all. Ive done it in a few installs with no problems

 

the best bet is to run a relay. its just safer to do. most people recommend running a relay if you have more than 2 amps hooked up to the remote line, just because it sucks to have to replace a perfectly good headunit because you blew it on a neon. just be safe

 

MOST HUs are rated at LESS then 500mA on the remote line, some lower then that. As a rule, if you don’t know the rated output on the remote out line, keep it UNDER 250mA-300mA (some cheep amps will pull that on the rem. line). It all depends on the make/model of the HU and how they operate the remote outline.

I agree that you “should” be OK. The problem is a neon can pull a good chunk of current at startup. That “spike” is all it takes sometimes. I fix two or three HUs a week with this type of damage. Just depends on how they’re operating the remote line in whatever particular HU you’re using.