Safe Lighting

[Gunowner99]

Pulled the trigger on a Fatboy JR, price discount at present can't be beat.

It is 60 high x 46 wide. I was looking at this as it seems good:

https://www.amazon.com/MAnyone with a Fatbot JR that has some lighting ideas?

[Manxdriver]

Link no worky!

[Gunowner99]

Oops. Try now.

MaxMySafe Gun Safe Vault LED LIGHT for 24-36" wide Safes (110V Powered, Motion Activated Switch) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B014263S6A..._yjxdybZZC05P8

[ray h]

Pulled the trigger on a Fatboy JR, price discount at present can't be beat.

It is 60 high x 46 wide. I was looking at this as it seems good:

https://www.amazon.com/MAnyone with a Fatbot JR that has some lighting ideas?

Well, a good dog is valuable and fun to have.

[chp1911]

I used a LED rope light for my safe. I was able to get most of the shelves and all of the long gun storage areas lit. I installed a plastic handi box and a switch. If the safe is in a poorly lit area you can install a lit switch to be able to see the switch in the dark.

[ontheborder]

I also have a wide body safe and used this:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

2 bars at the top of the safe placed in line about 2 inches from door edge shining down on top shelf, 2 placed in line across the middle of the bottom of the top shelf, and 1 on each side of the door about 2' feet from the floor. Works great.

[TooBigToFit]

You can find adhesive backed LED strip light on Amazon (of all sorts of no name brands). They're made of flat-flex PCB material with an adhesive material, and they're designed to be trimmable every couple of LEDs (every 3 LEDs for the one I got, which was about every 2 inches). Each section has a contact area before and after for 12VDC, as well as a current limiting resistor. I got a 5 meter/16.4ft roll for well under $10.

I used the entire roll in my safe. In the picture below, there's 5 independent LED strings. One goes around the entire perimeter of the door, pointed inwards. One is on each gun rest pointing down to the floor (on the left one, around the entire perimeter of the "U" shape, the right one, 3 strips front to back). The final 2 strings are under the shelf on the left side, and on the ceiling on the right, both 3 strips front to back. As you can see, it's almost excessively bright.

I used a magnetic Reed switch to control the lights using a relay (they're not so good at handling high amounts of current, hence the relay). The lights come on when the safe door is open, and turn off when it's closed. These are the kind of switches you'll find in a burglar alarm system. If you look at the door, to the left of the topmost handgun, you'll notice a rectangular camo colored projection. This is a riser for the magnet, which I made out of an ammo tray that I cut up and wrapped with camo duct tape. The height and position of both the magnet and the switch was a little tricky. I placed my smartphone camera inside the safe to watch the door close to see the relative position of the door with the edge, experimenting with different heights (using stacks of perf board) before I found one that worked. All this is housed in a little project box.

The whole thing is powered by a 12VDC power supply (actually, in my case, a 12VDC/5VDC power supply, since I wanted the 5VDC in case I wanted to do anything geeky). I added AC outlets in my safe, but you can easily run the whole thing off of batteries as well. It was a bit more work than buying something off the shelf, but I think it was worth it. I've got some wiring cleanup, but other than that, it's worked 100%. I'm actually thinking of laying out a PCB for this, if you're interested.

[HKusp 45]

I third the led light strips I picked mine up at costco on sale for $30.00 these were the adhesive backed strips 2 rolls $28 feet in total ( two 14 foot rolls) with a remote control so I don't use any switches just open the safe and hit the button. My safe already had plug outlets set up but it's fun to make it look like christmas in there too with the different modes, you know if staring at your guns in flashing colors is what you like to do. Currently Costco has a larger set for $40.00 but you get $36 feet in total with the remote and plugs etc so it's easy to set up. Yes you could still run a magnet type switch or get a motion detection unit to run inline as well. Most of the standard strips all run the same plugs.

[steve_010]

I did the Maxmysafe lighting kit as well (ordered from their website, though) and it's great. I always get compliments too. easy to set up and lights the whole thing up.

[JoshIronshaft]

I used LED rope light and a remote switch. I have the switch sitting front center on a shelf for an easy switch location. Haven't changed the battery in the switch in going on 5 years now.