Lighting for the rear cargo area presented more of a challenge than the front. I wanted purple lighting when the hatch opens, but that lighting wasn't really bright enough when digging around in the back for gear. So I added a push button switch that swaps between purple lighting and white spot lights.
Purple lights:
White lights:
It's not super obvious from the pictures, but the white lights are about 3X brighter than the purple.
First I replaced the stock rear light bulb with a purple
. To light up the left side, I used a short piece of purple
. These were wired in parallel to each other. For the bright lights, I used a pair of white
. These were also wired in parallel. I used a
to switch between the purple and white lights. I tapped into the wires feeding the stock trunk light, used the ground wire as a common ground for all the lights, and used the push button to send 12V from the hot wire to either the purple lights or the white lights. When the button is in the "out" position, the purple lights are on and the white lights are off. When the button is "in" (it's a push on-push off style button), the purple lights are off and the white spotlights are powered. All the lights go out when the hatch is closed, and also go out when the hatch has been up for about 10-15 minutes. I wired the button to stay lit in both positions, to make it obvious. Depending on how you wire it, the button could have been lit with the purple lights or the white lights. One interesting thing is that the switch lights up in both polarities. This makes me suspicious that the light is actually a bulb rather than an LED, which should only light when wired one way.
push button switch:
right side lights:
left side lights:
