Short story for you, another lesson for me!

For christmas my son gave me a set of 14" long led flexable white light strips. They are the side emitting kind. The packaging had a little switch and a nine volt battery so you could see what they looked like before installing! So on christmas day i could see they werent too bright and would make a nice accent light on the swing somewhere. I sat the lights aside until last week when i had a bit of free time to install. I removed the lights from the packaging but kept the little switch and battery intact so i could hold them in various places on the swing to see what looked best while illuminated. I decided up near the headlight wouldnt work because the headlight would overpower the rather dull led output of the strip lights! I finally decided to install in the gap between the seat and the side panel. With the led's being side emitting it was like they were meant to be there! They would tuck in there and look spectacular i thought! So i cut the little switch and nine volt battery free and started my install! Had to remove both rear side panels and under brakelight trim to access wire to power the lights. I peeled off the 3m tape and stuck the lights exactly where they had to go (no redo's with that extreme 3m tape). I then wired it all in pretty and reassembled everything. Now the time of truth, i turned the key and voila the lights were bright enough to burn my retinas. Seems the battery in the packaging must have been almost dead!!!!! Waaaay too intense for the side of the swing. We voted they have to be removed!! Havent had the time to remove yet but i will and probably reinstall on the wifes suv.  I ordered a 4mm x 5m roll of 3m tape off ebay so i can reuse the lights.

If they are that bright you could try putting them under the front cover, above the fender
with the light shining on it. I've seen it done and he really stood out after dark. I thought.

Before you rip it off take a look a some of the LED dimmers that are available, a search on ebay returns many cheap versions.

RArch- good idea. I checked ebay, $3.59 delivered for a nice card style dimmer. Thanks for the idea/solution.

The dimmer finally arrived today. Took a couple minutes to install. Excellent results. I can dim the lights waaaay down, various flash rates, strobe mode. Thanks again RArch for the idea!

How about some pictures of the finished install?