LED'd footwells
 

So this weekend, I installed a bunch of LEDs behind my climate control, basically anything that glows orange. Or used to, rather. But I noticed two of them weren't working, the rear defrost and the cruise control indicator. So, I pulled into the car and got to work. It was only broken solder joints, so I fixed them in maybe half an hour. But, lo and behold, I had three LEDs left over. So, of course, I had to find a way to integrate them into the car. I decided to mount them above the petals.

I pulled off both panels down there, the one immedeately forward of the steering column, and the one right above the petals. I scrapped some teensie tiny connectors out of an old CD player, and found some speaker wire in a box. I spliced the positive into the sunroof switch and grounded the other onto the frame with a spade connector. I put a male connector on the other end. I then drilled three holes into the lower, most forward panel, I think maybe 3/32", and hot-glued three LEDs along with their respective resistors. Oh my God you would not believe how fragile these things are.

But, long story short, it looks awesome. I still need to do the passenger side so it's more even, and I may even wire in a switch.

What I want to know is if there is enough interest in this to warrant a full pictorial DIY. I'll put some pics up later once it gets dark.



Jake

What happened to the pix n diy??? This sounds pretty bad ass....

Seems interesting. I'd wanna see pics before I could tell you if I'm interested. I'd like to know how to drop LED's in to ligh stuff up.. The tsx has some blue LED's shooting down down the front map lights that always lights up shifter, and one in the console that lights up the front of it.... the pedals would be interesting. I dont personally have a sunroof, and wouldnt want speakerwire and CD player parts making my car function. But if there was some new parts dropped in there, like new connectors and wires, then I'd probably be down to do this.

Good stuff. Hope to see some pics! Its gotten dark in the last week hasnt it?

http://xoxide.com/coldcathodes.html

much brighter. MUCH MUCH brighter.

Yeah, i got two 12 inch CCFL's in my trunk that I did a nice custom job on. Been meaning to write a DIY. In the trunk they werent THAT bright, but i'm thinking thats because the trunk liner is dark gray so it doesnt pick up red very well, but hen i put something in the drunk, its dope. I backed in the driveway, had the trunk popped to load some stuff at night, the garage door was all lit up- pretty damn dope.

Yeah, I installed 2 white ones in my trunk as well. It's like opening up the gates of heaven when you open my trunk.

haha, I almost went with white... but my coupe is red, so I thought I'd carry over the scheme.

Here are two pics I took at about 1am- overexposed

http://uoregon.edu/~jkrauter/DSC00149.JPG
http://uoregon.edu/~jkrauter/DSC00151.JPG

damnit, html doesnt work... cant do thumbnails... lemme netload these jpgs

got stuff to do, theres the link

Sorry, haven't gotten on in a while. Yeah, I thought about cathode tubes, but i think that's too much in the way of brightness. I think the setup I've got is about perfect as far as illumination goes. Just enough to look hardcore. I'll try and take some pictures tonight, but I'm not sure when I'll have the time to do a DIY. It may be this weekend, or later. Been pretty busy lately.

But as far as the install goes, It's pretty straightforward. If you can solder, you can do it. The only tricky part was the physical mounting of the LEDs and their respective resistors. I ended up almost encapsulating the whole thing in hot glue. I know, I know, it sounds really tacky, but there's a reason to the madness. Like I said, there's no support, it's just the solder joints and the wires. So, surrounding the assembly in something fluid and resiliant, like hot glue keeps it vibration isolated, etc.

More to come later.



Jake

Well, unfortunately, my camera will not pick up the red lights in my car, thus nulling the B.A. effect. Here's a picture of the lights themselves, along with the red climate control buttons. For some reason my camera decided it didn't really feel like focusing, so I apologize.

That looks clean, was it just 2 bulbs?

Well, it was three, but the third one's resistor got crushed by something up above that panel. Turned out to be a good thing, because the left and right one provide more than enough light. I think a third would have been too much.