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For the front bumper, I replaced the blank panels with panels that include daytime running lights. These were another ebay purchase from China.
When these are wired up properly, the DRLs light up white when the car is started. They flash amber when turn signals are used. When headlights are turned on, they dim to light blue. There are openings for mounting fog lights, but I haven't done that yet. Where I live, fog lights would pretty much never be used, so I don't see the point in spending the money on them. I'll keep my eyes open for something more decorative.
Did more LED work, this time on the interior. I pulled the right door panel and installed LEDs in the cup holder, above the door latch handle, and a long strip along the bottom and up the aft edge. The cup holders are yellow, to provide some contrast to the normal purple ones.
Here are a couple of night pics. The first with the door closed.
The installation started with tying into the wiring I had already done for the foot wells and center console LEDs. I ran a wire across the front, under the dash, and over to the boot on the front of the door. The side that attaches to the door is easy to disconnect and reconnect. The side that attaches to the car, less so. With the door side disconnected, I used a piece of heavier house wire to fish the LED wire through the boot. With the interior door panel removed, I reached through the slit in the door insulation and pulled out the end of the wire. You need to leave plenty of slack in the door. If you pull it too tight, the window will hit the wire when the window is lowered.
Some insulated spade terminals in the end of the wire completes the door side wiring.
On the panel side, first I installed the LED strips, then made a wire harness to connect the strips to the door side wire.
The handle strip was pretty easy. No modification of the panel, just use very thin wire to fit through the existing crack where the door panel mates with the door latch.
I used aluminum tape to run the wire along the top of the finger recess, back to where it connects to the door harness.
The long edge strip would not adhere to the textured surface of the door panel for long. The adhesive on these cheap LED strips isn't good for much. I used 3M tape to stick the strip to the door.
The wire for the strip goes through a hole drilled in the bottom of the panel.
Insulated crimp-on spade terminals connect the LED strip wire to the door wire harness.
The cup holder LED strip is split into two parts, the longer part attaches to the smooth, flat surface on the inside of the car pocket. A shorter section attaches with 3M tape to the textured door surface.
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The strip wire goes through a hole in the aft end of the cup holder pocket. It runs along the bottom of the pocket and joins up with the wire harness at the front of the door.
The door wiring harness is essentially a splitter, with 3 wires ending in female spade terminals coming together at a single set of male spade terminals that mate to the wire coming from the door.
This allows the door panel to be removed by breaking one set of terminal connections. It also allows me to change out any of the LED strips without doing extensive rewiring. At this time, I'm going to live with the lighting in this configuration for a while and see how I like it. I might decide that the long strip on the door edge is a little much. I'm also considering adding a strip around the inside of the speaker grill. I might even switch the yellow LEDs to purple, or maybe the purple ones to yellow. The terminal lugs allow for maximum flexibility.
Lighting for the rear cargo area presented more of a challenge than the front. I wanted purple lighting when the hatch opens, but that lighting wasn't really bright enough when digging around in the back for gear. So I added a push button switch that swaps between purple lighting and white spot lights.
Purple lights:
White lights:
It's not super obvious from the pictures, but the white lights are about 3X brighter than the purple.
First I replaced the stock rear light bulb with a purple LED replacement. To light up the left side, I used a short piece of purple LED strip. These were wired in parallel to each other. For the bright lights, I used a pair of white eagle eye style LED lights. These were also wired in parallel. I used a purple illuminated push button switch to switch between the purple and white lights. I tapped into the wires feeding the stock trunk light, used the ground wire as a common ground for all the lights, and used the push button to send 12V from the hot wire to either the purple lights or the white lights. When the button is in the "out" position, the purple lights are on and the white lights are off. When the button is "in" (it's a push on-push off style button), the purple lights are off and the white spotlights are powered. All the lights go out when the hatch is closed, and also go out when the hatch has been up for about 10-15 minutes. I wired the button to stay lit in both positions, to make it obvious. Depending on how you wire it, the button could have been lit with the purple lights or the white lights. One interesting thing is that the switch lights up in both polarities. This makes me suspicious that the light is actually a bulb rather than an LED, which should only light when wired one way.
push button switch:
right side lights:
left side lights:
I've got a pretty bright LED on the right to replace the original inkydeksant, but I definitely would like more diode emissions on the left side. Where did you run the wire, hide the wire, going from the oem right-side light, to your newly added white left-side light?
You said you replaced the orig white lamp with a purple lamp. So how did you get the right side to light up either white or purple?
There is no switch originally, to the right light, except for the one operated by opening-closing the hatch. By the way, I've seen that in many cars, interior lights are wired so that their switch is in series with a ground connection to the light rather than in series with the positive wire. I don't understand why they do it this way.
By adding a switch in series with the hatch-operated switch (if I can find it; it seems rather well-hidden), and after it, I could turn both lights off even with the hatch open.
Better yet, with a single-pole-double-throw switch with an off position ahead of the hatch-operated switch, with that switch in a middle off position I could keep the lights off whether the hatch is opened or closed, with the switch thrown in one direction I could turn the lights on whether the hatch is opened or closed, and with the switch thrown in the other direction I could arrange for the hatch switch to be the switch that turns the lights on and off.
Anyone have any idea where the hatch-operated switch is located?
Last edited by nomenclator; 10-16-2017 at 06:39 PM.
Where did you run the wire, hide the wire, going from the oem right-side light, to your newly added white left-side light?
You said you replaced the orig white lamp with a purple lamp. So how did you get the right side to light up either white or purple?
For my hatch lights, I ran the wire coming from the hatch switch to my add on push button switch. The push button is single pole, double throw, so in one position the purple lights come on, and in the other position the white lights come on.
To go from the right side of the car to the left side, I ran the wires under the plastic trim piece just inside the hatch. It comes off easily if you pull off the hatch gasket.
ToddF what kind of white insulation material is that that is sitting atop the plastic film on the inside of the door. Did it come with the car or did you add it? My car just has plastic film, no insulation stuck on top of it. I have a 2015 LX. Looks like you have a 2016 LX. If I recall correctly my LX also has less insulation attached to the inside of the plastic door panel, than yours has.
Last edited by nomenclator; 11-22-2017 at 12:26 PM.
ToddF what kind of white insulation material is that that is sitting atop the plastic film on the inside of the door. Did it come with the car or did you add it?
I've seen your other posts wondering about the door insulation. My 2016 LX came with patches of the same white insulation on both the door and the removable panel. I don't know if that was something they added between the 2015 and 2016 model years, or if they simply forgot to install it on your car.
Did a bit of work this weekend. First, I replaced the LED light strips in the front grille and behind the trailer hitch. Even though they are advertised as weather proof, they can't survive the extremes of winter weather. It looks like they need to be replaced every spring.
Also, I finally got around to doing some cleanup work on the USB cables charging my tablet and phone. I picked up a USB fast charger in the fall, and it has been working great. But when it's plugged in the power outlet by the cup holders, and USB cables are plugged into it, the cables interfere with a water bottle in the cup holder. I wired the charger directly to battery power, so I can charge my phone even when the car is off. The charger is mounted behind the passenger side kick plate, by the glove box hinge. A USB cable for the phone comes out between panels at the lower edge of the center console. The USB cable for the tablet routes behind the dash, through the wall of the center vent duct, and out the vent louver.
I made a video showing how to disassemble the dashboard panels and run the USB cable out the vent.
O.O impressive mods. the yellow and purple looks pretty epic- i suppose the farther it got into the build the more my eyes started to appreciate it. the grill [radiator] LED lighting i think is by far my favorite touch, followed closely by the blank panel replacement with functional lighting.
It's been a while since I updated this thread. I haven't done much work on the car in the meantime. The coronavirus has curtailed my normal recreational activities, so I've been doing a bit of updating and project work to fix up some things that have deteriorated over time. Now is as good a time as any to bring things back up to speed documentation wise. Let's start with the front grill LED strips.
Previously I had a single strip of LEDs behind the lower black trim on the front bumper. This strip would go bad over the winter, and I had to replace it every spring. This year I decided to step it up and run two additional strips behind the front bumper rail. Now the radiator is lit by 3 strips instead of 1, which looks awesome. Here's a video showing how the front bumper trim piece is removed and the LEDs installed.
09-11-2017, 11:19 AM
