Footwell LEDs...check!

[immattsaul]

Finally got around to installing my footwell LEDs earlier today. Not completely finished, need to clean up my splices a little bit. Not all of my colors work correctly, probably a short somewhere. Also plan on putting a small strip in that black hole of a cubby we have in front of the shifter.



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[TheBaker]

Looks great! Is the purple just a mix of blue and red?

This is such an easy install, it seems weird that so many people are willing to pay $250 to the dealer instead of $20 on LED's and an hour of labor.

[x_Diesel_x]

Looks great! Is the purple just a mix of blue and red?

This is such an easy install, it seems weird that so many people are willing to pay $250 to the dealer instead of $20 on LED's and an hour of labor.

Was gonna say, probably that's why those are the colors you are seeing. Only your blue and red LEDs are working. So you get violet as well since it is a mix of those. Missing yellow really and maybe white if your set has it.

But none the less, the blue looks like a good match to the OEM lighting inside he cabin.

Were did you buy your set? How much? Where did you splice it in? Switches or "auto" on/off with ignition power?


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[immattsaul]

Well I'm a low voltage electrician so I do stuff like this on the daily. It's actually a 150 color strip that I used with lighting module which uses a remote and IR. The lights can flash, strobe, fade into each other all those fun stuff. Everything I used a buddy of mine ordered off amazon for no more than $45. It's completely it's own circuit. Just ran a quad down to the underside of my seat and hooked up a 12v 7amp battery and voila! Lights.


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[x_Diesel_x]

Well I'm a low voltage electrician so I do stuff like this on the daily. It's actually a 150 color strip that I used with lighting module which uses a remote and IR. The lights can flash, strobe, fade into each other all those fun stuff. Everything I used a buddy of mine ordered off amazon for no more than $45. It's completely it's own circuit. Just ran a quad down to the underside of my seat and hooked up a 12v 7amp battery and voila! Lights.


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Nice, but wait.. Hooked up to a brick battery? Why did you opt for that alternative?


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[immattsaul]

Well a brick battery is readily available to me since I use them in alarm panels, but I've heard splicing into any wiring of the car could void some warranties so I opted out there. It was easy enough to just hook them up to its own power source. The module I used to divert power allows me to turn them on and off at will so I'd much rather use an independent power supply for them. Gonna put some more in today. Possibly a strip in the cubby and glove box. Any questions or comments are more than appreciated! Ask away guys.


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[Prime]

Looks awesome, great job!

I have some old school cold cathode lights from another car way back. I'm going to toss those in right after i get the car

[immattsaul]

Thanks man, I appreciate that. Definitely throw them in there. It just adds a little bit of spice to the interior look at night.


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[vubuilt]

Very nice looking!

[immattsaul]

Updated pictures of the white, red, green and blue. They fade through 44 colors I believe


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[GreyGhost12]

I'd like to wire up some LEDs around the car for when the dome light is on. I'm certain we have CANBUS so wiring up the extra lighting isn't as simple as splicing into the dome light pin switch in the door jamb as it used to be so long ago...

Any ideas how to wire them up to have them come on when any door is open?

[TheBaker]

In my Mazda 3, I spliced them into my dome lights. Just used a tap in connector and spliced each side Together, then spliced that into the wire for my domelight, so whenever I open my door the footwells come on.

what is canbus?

[GreyGhost12]

^^ It's a Controller Area Network system in a vehicle bus that will turn off the dome lights if you leave the doors open for a certain duration to save the battery as well as a lot of other stuff. So there are relays and micro-switches and such that must be tapped into for auxiliary lighting to work. You can't simply tap into the pin switch and have it work... As far as I know anyway. Perhaps I'm wrong?

[x_Diesel_x]

Well a brick battery is readily available to me since I use them in alarm panels, but I've heard splicing into any wiring of the car could void some warranties so I opted out there. It was easy enough to just hook them up to its own power source. The module I used to divert power allows me to turn them on and off at will so I'd much rather use an independent power supply for them. Gonna put some more in today. Possibly a strip in the cubby and glove box. Any questions or comments are more than appreciated! Ask away guys.


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Well, sure if your wiring got fried or if you started getting electrical issues they could try and blame it on a bad splice or crossed wires and deny warranty over such issues. So your argument is indeed valid.

Now Im not sure if I would go that route just to avoid a possible "what if". Specially since the added cost of a brick battery ($25-$30) would almost match the cash spent for the lighting itself. But a novel approach nonetheless.

Also, the finished look is awesome.


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[TheBaker]

My 3 does the same thing. They'll automatically shut off after a few minutes.

[GreyGhost12]

Perhaps since LEDs take so little power it will be ok to wire to the door switch? I understand if you use normal incandescent lights the draw would be too much and cause issues with CANBUS. As I've said I don't know for sure and I don't want to goof anything up by wiring them directly to the door pin-switch. If anyone else knows how to get around this please post up as I'm very interesting in taking on such a project.

[immattsaul]

Well a brick for me is around $7 I get them wholesale =P. I wanted to keep them separate from any if the wiring as well because there's quite a lot of splices and less searching through the voltages of a bunch of random wires.


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[immattsaul]

The strips I use need 12V DC. And need a quad ran to it seeing as there are 4 wires to each strip (blue-, red-, green-, black+) all the quads from the strips go to a central splice point all color to color with a feed from the splice point to the module. Power wire from module to battery. Good to go.


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[x_Diesel_x]

Yeah, that's something that bugs me a bit. Wanting to know where to split into without having to go thru that whole test and try each wire to see what is what.

Anyone knows if there's an electrical wiring diagram for the V?..


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[immattsaul]

Yeah I could easily search around and find a positive and negative to splice into, but I'm running a bunch of wires already so why not just run one for power and throw a battery on? Also if there's any problems with my lights in the future I have an easy circuit to work on. Just seemed like the best idea at the time for me.


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