Hi Guys,

Looking for some advice on wiring in some neons I have just got to the magna. Going for two in front and two in back. Going to splice them off the back of the cig lighter.

Questions I have are:

Should they be wired in parallel or series?

Are the attached pictures accurate and which one will work and be best (please dont laugh lol )?

Want two switches, one to control rear neons and one to control front ones independent of one another and independent of everything. i.e. I only want them on when I want to turn them on and I want em off when I want em off.

Will having four neons jacked onto the cig lighter be too much? Will it overload?

Appreciate any help and or suggestions on this. Thanks.

Hi Guys, Should they be wired in parallel or series?

Go with Parallel. ;) Also here is a revised second pic, your version the back lights will only turn on if the front ones are ALSO on ... :)

And it depends on your cigarette lighter wiring capacity as to whether or not they will overload it. It is better to run a relay using a fused supply direct from the battery, and the switch supplying the coil of the relay from the cig lighter (or accesories supply line).

I'll second that. Series is no good coz you get voltage drop to the second neon.

Go with Parallel. ;) Also here is a revised second pic, your version the back lights will only turn on if the front ones are ALSO on ... :)


You shouldn't have to run wire back to the black wire of teh cig lighter. Just earth the neons in their location. That should make life a lot easier. I am right arn't I?

ohh, i didn't earth mine, but fed mine back to the -ve on ciggie lighter. I reckon, instead of earthing the tubes at their locations, just feed it back to ur switch, and earth your switch (less hassle with wiring).

so its like, ciggie lighter +ve and -ve to switch with speaker cable. Then continue negative to all the inverters/neons and acc from the switch to +ve on inverters/neons. simple!

I used some cheap crappy speaker cable to wire mine up in parallel. i spliced the wires behind the cigarette lighter and used them, doenst' overload, and i'm running 3 leds, and 3 cold cathode tubes. my switch glows red too :)

u might notice if they are cheap lighter plug in ones that they dont light up as much as they should when run thru a small wire :S try find a nice big + for them to hook up to and a ncie big earth for good flow

Thanks for the advice guys. Appreciate it. I reckon I've got it all covered now :D

u might notice if they are cheap lighter plug in ones that they dont light up as much as they should when run thru a small wire :S try find a nice big + for them to hook up to and a ncie big earth for good flow


to be honest, i ran outta speaker cable so from the switch to siggie, i used a power cable from an old loung room amp i had. that cabling is a little thicker than my subwoofer speaker cables. the speaker cable seemed fine, it still read out about 12.6V....

I reckon I'm just gonna buy the thickest practicable cable. Going by whats been said here and on other threads, it seems, the thicker the better, that way no troubles. Mind you, the wires running into the neons are'nt exactly thick to start with...oh well, I'll work it out. Thanks. :shifty:

With car wiring, dont choose the cheap alternative. By decent wiring (ie at least 10 amp 12V wire)

Had a bad experience with neons a few weeks back. Installed neons in my mates car using OF speaker cable that I had lying around, and hooked it up to a ciggy plug for a temp installation, and everything was fine. He had em like that for a week, then called me up saying he wanted them hardwired with a proper switch. So i cut of the ciggy plug, fed the cable through the firewall and using the appropriate connectors, connected em to the battery. The first sign that there was a aproblem was that when we tried to connect the positive wire to the battery (with the neons off of course) the positive terminal was sparking furiously. On inspection of the cable, it had turned to jelly, and was very hot. We talked about it, and decided that the supposed high power OF cable was the most likely cause, so we decided to remake the neon wiring harness from 12V auto wire. Went down to SuperCrap and bought some 10amp wire. We ripped out the neons, remade the harness, and sure enough, no problems the problem was solved.

On a side note, his car wouldnt start while we were at supercrap, so i told him to give me a spanner and to pop his bonnet. I had a look under there, have his negative termenil on the battery a good wack with the spanner, and told him to start her up :D . The moral? When nothing seems to work, hit it with a spanner :bowrofl:

With car wiring, dont choose the cheap alternative. By decent wiring (ie at least 10 amp 12V wire)

Had a bad experience with neons a few weeks back. Installed neons in my mates car using OF speaker cable that I had lying around, and hooked it up to a ciggy plug for a temp installation, and everything was fine. He had em like that for a week, then called me up saying he wanted them hardwired with a proper switch. So i cut of the ciggy plug, fed the cable through the firewall and using the appropriate connectors, connected em to the battery. The first sign that there was a aproblem was that when we tried to connect the positive wire to the battery (with the neons off of course) the positive terminal was sparking furiously. On inspection of the cable, it had turned to jelly, and was very hot. We talked about it, and decided that the supposed high power OF cable was the most likely cause, so we decided to remake the neon wiring harness from 12V auto wire. Went down to SuperCrap and bought some 10amp wire. We ripped out the neons, remade the harness, and sure enough, no problems the problem was solved.



More than likely you shorted that cable whilst pulling it through the firewall instead of it being overloaded. Neons use f'all power. Did you put a FUSE on the wire??