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Cargo light button

Big Blue

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GET FORSCAN!! dark mode is so nice
Have Forscan. Just didn't want those lights to come on, interior lights are fine.
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P. A. Schilke

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oldnslow

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My 2005 GMC had a similar pushbutton to turn on the cargo lights when other conditions were right, but I could never get that light to turn on. With the Ranger it would come on when I didn't want it and I couldn't turn it off. I just forgot about it on the GMC, but I pulled the bulbs on the Ranger before I got the topper installed. I had forgotten about it until this thread came up.

Maybe the engineers at Ford and GM could put their heads together and invent a switch that would allow the customer to control whether the light is on or off. It doesn't seem like it would be that difficult...
 

Brett Fields

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For those of us with caps, can we repurpose this button? Maybe for scene lights or something?
 


JACKSMYDOG

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For those of us with caps, can we repurpose this button? Maybe for scene lights or something?
I thought about that but the current power supply is on a timer, speed cap, and comes on with the courtesy lights every time a door is opened. Combined they really limit it's functionality IMO and I couldn't think of a useful function for it.

You could maybe cut the power supply to the button, run new power (from the 12V socket?) and re-purpose it.
 

thorn726

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And "dark mode" is . . . ??
oh sorry / it lets you shut off al lthe lgihts that come on when you hit the lock etc. there are a few levels of it but so far we only try level one. i love it because going camping i hate all those extra lights that come on every time you open a door lighting up the campsite and wasting the battery... there are some threads about it if you search dark mode.
 

bsr956

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I prefer to launch them at people who are annoying me. Especially those who have their high-beams on behind me at stop lights. My own silent protest. Maybe I should change them out with super high intensity bulbs to try to blind the drivers with their high beams on... Give them a taste of their own medicine.
Back in the roll bar days, alot of my friends had 1 or 2 KC Hilites turned backwards. "Only" to light things up to not back into a ditch...
 

oldnslow

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You could maybe cut the power supply to the button, run new power (from the 12V socket?) and re-purpose it.
I doubt it. Its not a real switch, it just signals the computer. You would have to modify the truck's software to change its function. Might be possible in Forscan though.
 

9zero1790

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why even offer us a button if the computer is in total control, ford.
wonder if we could bypass the computer and let the light do whatever it does whenever and then use the button for something else ?
 

12Bravo20

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Hey I’m a Navy squid, quit launching my brothers in arms at offending people and just feed them once in awhile so they don’t expire!!
I'll have to tell all my fellow Army veteran friends that I have a squid launcher built into my truck
????

Yeah I'm gonna give you trouble but I'll still stick up for you if some civi messes with you.
 

Gerder

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I didn't know these trucks had a cargo light button.
Aaaaand … you didn't miss anything at all except having to ask yourself the question of the meaning again.
 

ControlNode

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For those of us with caps, can we repurpose this button? Maybe for scene lights or something?
Yes, you can.

I just tapped into my TBC harness where it jumps the bed light connection when I installed the bed lights in the tonneau cover rails, so the truck's harness is unmodified. Since the two LED strips I'm using are just under 2A, the controller in the BCM was unfazed by it. But if the load is much more (maybe >5A) I would have used a relay to be safe.
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