Here's my interior floor LED upgrade I did to Leona. I'll try to explain why, what and how things were done. (I've done the same kind of things to my Jaguar XJS and Lexus SC400, but LED's tech wasn't out back then for those cars.)

I installed pure white strip LED's (3 LED's, top-facing). I installed one in the driver floor well, one in the passenger floor well, one in the rear driver seat, one in the rear passenger seat, one in the center passenger seat and one in the rear passenger center console. These lights work off of the dash lights and are dimmable, controlled by the dash dimmer. I also installed two lights in the trunk, installed in the rear "roof" of the trunk, the area that gets no light from the trunk light, which operates off of the trunk light.

Lighting, though, isn't just about throwing lights in and calling it a day. You (or at least my standards) have to ensure the LED's can't be seen directly in any seat position (otherwise they'll appear like tiny little suns, extremely bright to your eyes), also can't be directly seen from any position outside of the car (such as walking around looking into the windows). They also need to pour light into the areas you want and more importantly NOT flood any areas you don't want light (such as the car's roof or windows or even just shining too high on passengers). I don't want light reflecting off of a piece of chrome in the car at night, tha'd drive me NUTS. This means the lights have to have just the right position, which ain't easy. For instance, the driver's LED is mounted and angled completely different than the passenger's. This causes all the lights to give different levels of brightness. So to solve that problem, I created my own tinted lenses for the lights, so each light has its own lens tinted specifically for that light and the lens positioned just right for it.

Here's the result. It's extremely hard to take photos at night, so just keep that in mind. (Also had to reduce some of the sizes as the forum wasn't accepting them.)



Here's a photo showing the lights with no outside light shining on the interior. The lights are slightly brighter than what they appear in this photo by the way. You can see from the passenger side how the light is perfectly pouring out, going no further than the very top of the seat. The same happens for the driver side.





Same areas as the pic above, just taken with different lighting so show how they look. Again, these lights are pure white, but in some shots, they appear blushish white.





Here you can see the rear seats. The image with the interior lights off is the actual true color of the lights. I installed the lights in such a way that they're completely invisible to the naked eye, you can't see'em at all in daytime. Then, at night, you still can't, but clearly the lights are able to function and do their job perfectly. You also can't accidentally hit'em. I've had the lights in there for two months and I've had adults in the back, kids (nieces and nephews), bags or whatever on the seat floors... they can't be hit the way they're positioned in there. And now onto my favorite part, the rear center console.





How does the rear center console LED work? *grin* Like a 'freakin' champ, baby. The LED is hidden in the center and can't be seen from any angle. The arm rest can be closed, of course... and when it's closed, no light can be seen. The seats fold down just as they always do. Oh, and every single wire is completely hidden, even when the seats are folded down.

So what do I think of it? Ahh man, it's amazing. I love the fact that I haven't, and won't, upgrade the interior lights to white LED's... they're the stock bulbs, which looks best on tan and beige interiors (black interiors look better with white light), so then once the car's started up, the yellowish interior lights fade and the white floor lights illuminate. We always drive with the rear center control (arm rest) down, so this makes the car's uniqueness pop even more at night. I didn't feel that "safety comfort" at night until I got these lights. I went the pure white light route because I was inspired by 2012 luxury cars, a lot of them, such as Lincolns, have pure white floor lights that run with the dash lights.

 

Looking good. I like the fact the you stress the importance of doing the job the right way the first time. Meaning lights are strategically placed, all wiring hidden etc...

WTG and thanks for sharing.

Alittle hint on the pictures. Edit your post, click on the thumbnail, let it open in a new window, right click, copy and go back to your post, paste where you want the picture and POOF expanded picture for everyones enjoyment.

 

Hey, thanks, glad you like'em. And cool, updated the images.

 

Ah much better with the expanded pics! WTG!

 

Nice job on the lighting. I've been thinking about doing this for a while but just don't have the time right now. I have a 2009 Escape with similar lighting(stock). Only these you can change between about 7 different colors. I like the white, blue or red, depending on my mood.

 

Cost of parts? What kind of time do you have into thiat project?

 

@2000. Yeah, changeable LED coloring is cool. They got aftermarket kits to do that, but I think white is just too cool that I'd never change colors to anythng other than that. Although I never thought about green, I wonder if that would look cool and unique or tacky...

@Cat Each light was $90 or so, so times 8... $720. Oh wait, this isn't 2001, it's 2012? So $1.50 times 8... $12. Funny how prices have dropped for LED lighting. That don't count the wiring or lenses, but those were all cheap too.

Time, however, ooo-wee it took a long time. Nights and nights of work. One night I spent 8 hours straight. Most of this involved planning, refining and tweaking. Not only that, but it's surprisingly frustrating; make a small tweak to match angels or brightness to one light and then have it out of sync with another and so on.

BUT, this is something that'll last for years and years. I had a blast doing it and I've truly become conditioned to only want to drive a car at night with mood lighting.

 

Nice work. I have done something similar but using single 5mm green LEDs (to match dash lights) one in each door pocket (pointing downwards) and above each of the door window switch packs. These are also dimmed with the dash lights.
I intend to change the little orange downlighter in the overhead console for a green LED in the next couple of weeks.

 

Thanks. I'd thought about doing lighting for the same switch area you mentioned, but I wasn't sure how I'd hide the lights to be invisible to the naked eye and decided against it.

So how do your green LED's look? Post up some pictures, I'd love to see'em. And include some taken in the day light, particularly the switch areas.

 

I'll upload some pictures when I can figure out how to do it, links to Picasa don't seam to work?

 

Ok, lets see if this works, haha.
The effect is more subtle than it appears in the photos. The glow is more spread out, not as harsh, or as bright as it looks.













For some reason I can't seam to change the size of the photos in the window and the bottom image won't rotate????

 

I like the quality you did for the install (the daytime pic), looks real nice.

 

Good work both of you.

David I've edited your pics for you, I guess we just need to turn our heads sideways for the last one.

 

Very nice! Looks like you definately took your time as well which certaintly pays off.

 

Thank you Norri. (just noticed you've enlarged one twice)

All the LEDs are installed using a 6mm panel mount (5mm LED fitting)with the long outer legs cut off (panel fixings) and superglued in place. There is enough give in the padding to allow for flush fitting.
The only problem is, I have five left over and am itching to find a use for them.