Hello Folks. Neon Lighting

I'm building a VW Trike.  A friend is also building his own.  He wants lots of lights and some neon as well.  I'm trying to calculate his total amperage requirement to choose the alternator we need.  Everything is finite except for the neon he wants to run.  Can any of you guys steer me or give me the wattage or amperage requirements for the kits out there?   A spec sheet quote or even a wild-assed guess?

Hook up the neons. Grab a multimeter and set it to read DC amps. Put it inline on the main power lead going to the neons and you can see exactly how much current it draws. Most multimeters can only support between 10 - 20 amps. Another method is to put a fuseholder inline and keep dropping the fuse until it blows/melts. IE start with a 25 amp fuse and turn on the neon, if that's fine drop down to a 20 amp fuse, and so on.. Your best bet is to contact the manufacturer of the specific neon that you have and ask them. Mike

Most neon requirements are very low.  My good friend in the neon business says that 10ft of neon will draw less than 3 amps at 13vdc

usually an underbody neon kit has a total draw of 10 to 15 amps of draw (usually a 15 amp fuse inline) but what I recommend is the LED technology. more durable, way less draw, and in most cases brighter. I leave mine on all night long and no problems with dead batteries, plus, with the underbody kits, they come with a controller (liteglow or varad, varad patterns are WAY cooler) that offers up to 16 different flash patterns. the future of lightingI tell it like it is...