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i would like to make it so that when my door opens that the underseat LEDS come on. I know nothing when it comes to car electrical, i am a computer geek at heart. so how do i do this?

Basically i am setting up two LED's (green) under each seat opposite from each other, one on each side. I would also like to make it so that there is a switch that will turn them on if the doors are closed. (second part optional, but preferred)


Also, i have been told that the is a remote control for my stock HU, i called the dealer, and they laughed said i was nuts, no such thing exists... but i went to majestichonda.com and found it there.. has anyone bought this remote? does it work for the LX Special Edition?

sorry, im new to all of this, and if you would like to flame me go ahead, i always get a kick out of it.

 
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the remote is ONLY for the 05 SE with that nice fancy double din HU

you can wire the LED's in to your dome light wiring, or connect a relay to the door switch (going off the dome light would be easier), and just ground em and you'll be fine. not the best practice to tap right off the dome light power (should use a relay), but LEDs use so little power that it's not a big dela

 
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is it possible to make it so that if i open the driver door, only the driver seat lights up, and only passenger lights up when passenger door is open? if so how?

 
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The door LED thing will probably work since there are individual door triggers for each door. But yeah you're going to need to run relays for each set of LED's. You're gonna need to run a 12 volt source from the battery so that the LED's light up even when the car is off, and then tap into the car's door trigger wires which are up in the dash. I don't reccomend that you try this yourself if you don't have any experience with electronics or relays since you could potentially mess sh*t up.

 
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piece of cake.

first thing is first, you need to isolate each door trigger. they are linked together in yoru underdash. the wires run from the pinswitch to just under the rear seat, then travel up the console. its easiest to grab the wire as its going from the pinswitch the the center console. eaisest to isolate. youll cut one and solder in a diode. this will isolate the lines, but still have them both trigger your other accessories. (alarm and dome light)

next, is the switching. I believe they are negative pin switches, but youll need to confirm that. lets say for the sake of argument they are for the time being. next step is to get a pair of relays, a pair of t-taps, and some wire.

okay. T-tap your pinswitches and run a wire to under the seat. youll do this outside the diode you installed, or else either door will light up both LED's. next, run a line of BOTH 12 volts and ground to under the seat. you can grab power anywhere. your cig lighter, for example. (assuming its constant 12 volts, not switched. there is constant power also going to the radio for sure, and into the steering column for sure.) run the lines under both seats.

you are good to go now. in case you dont know relays, think of them like an electric switch. teeny current here switches on massive current to power (in this case) LED's. since they are low current, you dont need bosche 40 amp relays, you can get by with 30 cent 12 volt models from radio shack. SPST is fine, any other version works too, but is overkill.

now some terminalogy relating to my description. Ill refer to the "coil" as the switch we are trying to fire to turn the relay on. the "relay switch" will be the SPST switch we are using to turn on power sent to the LED.

youll branch your power and ground many times under the seat, by the way. first, you have two leads going to the coil. one is 12 volts, the other is the dor pinswitch. (itll be GROUND and pinswitch if its a 12 volt door pinswitch. I really think its a ground system though, so that makes it 12 volts and the pinswitch.) heres test number one: the relays will either click or youll feel them when they fire. close your door and see if the relay fires. open, see if it goes. check both sides, too, to make sure the relays are isolated from each door. they should click whenthe door opens, and click when the door closes.

now that that is accomplished, we go to the light itself. your LED will be labeled with two lines, power and ground. ground the ground line. now, first, we will do your switch. I think the easiest way to do this is to use a DPDT switch, but if you can think of another way, itll be just as good. put your switch wherever you want it. cig lighter panel, change bin, centerconsole, wherever. next, bridge the two poles and wire that to 12 volts. again, grab constant power from your most convinient source. finally, grab a seperate wire from two switch throws (make sur eyou are on the same side of your switch!) and run those under each seat, and wire them to the LED 12 volt lines.

now, when you flip the switch, car on or off, doors open or shut, BOTH LED's will switch on.

finally, your relay output. wire 12 volts to one side of the relay switch, and the other goes ALSO to the 12 volt line of the LED. now, your LED's will each light individually when you open a door, and turn off when you shut the door.

if you flip your external switch, both turn on. then you open the driver door, nothing happens. flip the switch off, the passenger LED goes off, but the driver door remains lit. your passenger opens the door, now both are lit. they will go off in the order the doors are shut.

neat, no?

 
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I drew up a ghetto paint diagram to make it easier to see hwo the wiring works.



to the left is your car, complete with a radio and front and rear seats. the purple wires are the stock pinswitch wires. insert diode there, its right under the carpet, cant miss em. you can get the wire colors from the alarm wiring codes off this site. itll be the same wire colors, even back there. the purple lines extend all the way into the underdash, I indicated such.

the other colors we add ourselves. I grapped power from the radio itself, and ground I took from the star ground under the center console. the console has to go anyways to get the wires under your seats.

t-tap your pinswitches and run wires under the seats. (I colored those wires orange.)

12V constant goes DIRECTLY to each seat (red) but also to a DPDT switch. the underside of the switch will look JUST like my picture. (two rows of three terminals) You can duplicate that wiring scheme exactly. afte you wire it up, you can install the switch, and turn it whatever way you want on and off to be. the lines off I colored blue so you can see where they go, and where they directly end up. (at your under-seat LED itself).

ground is easy, I used black for the wire color. direct to the underseat area on each side.

the LED schematic is easy enough to understand, too. two lines run to the + wire, and the neg is grounded to the wire you ran there.

the complex thing to wire will be that relay, if youve never done one before. Bosche relays come with FIVE terminals rather than four, you dont use the center one. the switch schematic will change from relay to relay, but the function wont. if you draw me exactly what you see on the relay you buy, I can tell you hat does what. the coil that switches the relay will look roughly the same. a box with two leads, one on each side. probably diagonal lines inside.

does that make sense? again, this system will turn on your LED's when the doors open, independently per side, and also give you an additional override switch that turns on BOTH lights simultaneously regardless of door positions.

 
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by the way, there is NO difference in anything ive said if you want to run a neon under there instead. or rope lights. or an incandescent bulb. or an extra set of freaking headlight bulbs. whatever. as long as the light is a 12 volt light, its the same!

 
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hey thanks ill start on it this weekend

 
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just out of curiousity.. anyone know any place that does installs? or anyone near me, that wants to get paid for doing the install?

 
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how close are you to the bay area?

and how close are you to fresno?

 
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uhm, im about a 3hr drive

 
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about how long do you think it would take on average for this to be done? i have a friend who says he will do it for me. we are going to meet tomorrow and see how far we get.

 
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Uh... it may seem too easy but, why not just wire to the dome light? It comes on when the doors open.

 
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assuming you have no idea what you are doing? itll be a couple of days.

chances are good you can get it done in several hours though, even if you are bumbling.

if your buddy knows exactly what he is doing, a couple hours should be about right.

 
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heres what we did so far, the door switch doesnt work yet, but the on off switch does, we are going to finish later, but i ran out of time.

http://www.xcgdesign.com/images/pics/?d=car&s=&r=

 
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i didnt want to do that because i only want the lights to work sometimes... thats why i have a switch mounted under the seat.. so that when i want my car to look stock, untouched.. i can turn them off. where as if i connected them to the dome lights it would be a bit too obvious.