To add lights to your Power Wheels you will need LED strips or individual LEDs. If the battery is above 12V a Voltage step-down converter is needed off the battery. Install a distribution block onto the step-down and run the wires to where the lights will be. Solder the wires and add a toggle switch to turn them off and on.
Power Wheels are for kids and adults who want to relive their childhood. But did you know that adding led lights can make your power wheels look super cool?
Adding led headlights and taillights is a really easy way to up the wow factor of your vehicle.
The great news is the price is low for this custom job. This blog post will go over how to add led light kits, what parts you need, and where to buy them!
Items Needed for Lights on Power Wheels
There are a few more things that you will need for the upgrade.
- A screwdriver
- Soldering kit
- Wire cutters
- 12v Wire
- Electrical Tape / Glue Gun
How to Add LED Lights to Power Wheels
If you are running above 12V batteries it is best to also purchase a Voltage step down converter [Amazon Link] and run that in between the battery and a distribution block (image below).
A distribution block [Amazon Link] will really help keep all the wires clean and easy to set up once installed.
You can also decide to purchase a dedicated 12V battery and install it just for the lights.
That way it won’t take away from your regular run time of the vehicle. That is up to you how long the run time currently is and how many LED lights you plan on adding.
When you have the distribution block all set up you can wire each set of lights separately to the spot you wish to place them. Run the wires in the interior of the Power Wheels that way the driver doesn’t get all caught up in them.
You will have to disassemble some of the body of the vehicle to do this. Once all the wires are run you can use the LED strips [Amazon Link] under and inside the car.
Most likely you will have to drill a hole or two in the plastic depending on how you run the wire and the Power Wheels make and model. Make sure to also run them to the toggle switch so the LED light strip can be turned off and on at will in the car.
Now anytime your child wants the lights off or on all they have to do is flip the switch and the light will come on. You can wire as many LED lights that come in the kit as long as you have room on the distribution block.
LEDs don’t use too much power so your 12V should be fine.
Electrical work can be tricky so make sure you know what you are doing before you start this DIY project and make sure you have an understanding of soldering. Next, you will need to solder the wires to the light kit and toggle switch.
It is recommended to use heat-shrink tubing [Amazon Link] to be extra safe and help against accidental wetness.
“After we got the speed handled he decided to add some lights to it and picked out blue underglows, green interior lights, and multi-color headlights with red taillights. The underglows and interior greens are LED strips. The headlight & taillight LEDs are individual LEDs, wired together beneath the light housing.”
Installing LED Headlights & Taillights on Your Power Wheels
Installing the headlights and taillights won’t be that difficult if you already set up LED lights above. You would already have the step-down converter and distribution block connected.
Here you will just run wires to the headlight area. To do this disassemble the front and back end of your ride on.
You will want to remove the headlights and use a small drill bit to make holes in the plastic if needed where the lights will go.
You can choose the color of the LED individual lights [Amazon Link] as you would like.
You may need to use electrical tape or a glue gun to keep the lights in place. Once they are all in the headlight area correctly install the headlight back where it previously was in the car.
Start soldering the wires together. Don’t forget before you put the whole vehicle back together make sure to test the light.
The worst thing is not testing the light and you put the plastic parts back on and then have to remove them again, basically doing the job twice.
The taillights will be very similar except most time there is no housing already created. You can simply drill holes in the plastic and add red LED lights.
Again, don’t forget a toggle switch [Amazon Link] so you can control the power of the lights. Next, take a bunch of pictures and show off the light installed on your Power Wheels to all your friends.
How Much Battery Power is Left on Power Wheels
Adding a battery meter is nice as well, this will help you monitor how much power is left in the Power Wheels battery. The images and product info were provided by Reddit user: reddawg5115 and he used the voltage meter [Amazon Link] to know when it was time to leave the park and head home.
This way he wouldn’t get halfway home and need to carry or push the Power Wheels the rest of the way. My huge thanks for the information provided!
Once you have the voltage meter installed by running another wire to the distribution block it will let you know how much percentage of the battery is left. Pay attention the next few times the Power Wheels is used and you will get a great idea of how long each percentage is.
This is also great to monitor the health of your battery, over time batteries do lose charge and you may need to replace the battery. You will know it’s time if the voltage starts to go down very quickly.
More Details About this Modified Corvette Power Wheels
We first started by adding a single 20v Dewalt tool battery using a pre-made wire harness.
He instantly loved the speed increase but it only had a 10-15 min runtime so we soon installed the 2nd harness to add a 2nd 20v and now we easily get 30-45 min before the voltage meter we also added starts noting that voltage has dropped.
I have this meter set at 16.5 volts, which generally gives us a good 10-minute window to get home before the batteries completely die on us, and living across from a town park system we sometimes need every second of that 10-minute buffer to get home in time.
When we cruise around the town park across from us he draws a lot of attention from other kids which he loves to explain to them everything we changed on the car.
It looks like the wheels are on their way out sooner than later so we’ll most likely need to replace the tires this summer.
I think that with the new traction we may blow the stock motors as well.
I’ve seen a lot of posts that running 20v blows the motor fairly quickly, but so far we’ve had no issues with running 20v, mostly because the wheels are so worn down that he does burnouts until it finally grips and off he goes.
Once the motor does break tho we will continue our mods and add some 775s or something, we haven’t quite decided yet because as much as I know he’d love that much speed, as-is I still have to jog to keep up with him when he’s driving it stock in the high-speed gear.
As we now also have a daughter that’s currently 2.5, I’m sure McQueen will be going under the knife soon as well.
Conclusion
With these new lights, your kids will play all day with all the different color lights, white, blue, red, green, and orange. It’s important to make sure you test as you go with every bit of the job.
There are so many awesome things you can do to Power Wheels at a really good price. I want to thank the Reddit community as they have been very helpful as I try to cover everything I can on this website.
I really want it to be a one-stop for all your Power Wheel projects. After you have added some sweet LED’s why not add some traction to the tires.
Please be careful and use at your own risk
None of the authors, contributors, administrators, or anyone else connected with RCRideOnCars.com, in any way whatsoever, can be responsible for your use of the information contained in or linked from these web pages.