interior neon cathodes

I recieved a blue neon cathode light

(the model has an easy to use ciggerette adapter on it... and it pulses to music)
since, my smoke-tray was removed from my car for the EQ i dont have my ciggerette lighter anymore, nor did it work to begin with.
the light also has a switch that i removed inline not built into the light. so essentially if i was to connect it to any live wire, it should turn on, given that the wires are properlly connected.

I tried this, this afternoon and the wires i used were from a burnt out light, so its possible the fuse is burned by now.
I tried hooking up the wires from the cathode light to the light wires i opened up. and nothing came out, tried each wire on one another, and nothing. so i got my dmm and checked, and i was recieving 20mv (i think) of DC.

anyways im stumped because i dont know if the lines really blown because im recieving a Direct Current but my light isnt working. could it be what i measured is insufficent for my light?

may be a stupid question, but have you tried the light on just the batt to make sure it works? if so, are you sure that the cig plug was not also an adapter or converter?

no, i cant say for sure whether it was and adapter or converter ;/
going to go try the batt -_- shoulda done that earlier.
thanks ;-)

the light works from the batt so it must have been the wires. i'll look for others when i get my car in the shop thanks

they wires themselves may be dead. when I installed my head unit in my car the idiot before me tried to install a head unit himself and f**ked up wires. try checking the fuse as well. if anything metal had gotten into the light thing (where u stick the lighter in to heat up) it could have blown the fuse. you can just run a wire straight from the battery and hardwire a switch to turn on and of the light yourself. that may run you battery dead, but thats how my neons are wired.

yeah i may as well try that, there is no sense in running an inline setup as is, if im just going to be ripping more dash out. i'll try the fuse though it would be good to find out. thanks for your input

I read somewhere that you should limit the voltage going to the neon to 12 volt also, is that true?  If so, how do you do that if you wire it to the car power instead of going to the lighter or 12-volt socket?

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Plan, Research, Do

No I'm pretty sure someone told you wrong the power in the cigarette lighter is the same amount of power you get wiring directly.  Now there may be some resistors in the plug that goes in the cigarette lighter my advice would be to pop open the plug and see if there is any resistors in there, if not then you're good.  If there are just buy the right resistor from radio shack and run it inline.  Actually now that i'm thinking about it I think the resistors are on a pc board inside the plastic casing of the light so you should be good.

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Learning the trade one fiberglass creation at a time!

i took a class in electrical engineering. you can use what is called a buffer to damped the voltage of the power you use. im not sure how to do that in this situation because I learned it on computers and motherboards and stuff