Everyone has been so helpful to a new Jag (XJ) owner, I can't say how appreciative I am...it makes me feel like I have finally ARRIVED...


so now, I have friends with Audis, BMW's etc. and I want to gloat (graciously), but they have different interior night lighting in their cars which I can't seem to duplicate (one guy has a Ford Taurus and can change the lighting inside...ugh).


So, if there is anyone out there who can help me modify the interior lighting (in the foot-well, in the door panels, etc.) I would be ever so grateful....I'm thinking red and/or blue/green) thanks in advance.....

 

Chris, what you can do is only limited by your imagination. What I am going to propose will give you the option of 16.7 million colors (take that BMW, LMAO with an evil chuckle). It would be fully programmable to come on to the color that you chose and when you get bored, you pull out the simple remote and move on to your next color (or you can let it naturally cycle through all the colors).

What you want to look up is called "5050 RGB led strip". An example of it would be: 5M 300LED SMD 3528 5050 5630 RGB White Flexible Strip Light Remote Power Supply | eBay .
This has a picture of the remote that you would also get. As for wiring it up, it can be as simple or as difficult as you want to make it. If you are worried about resale and not wanting to modify the wiring harness of the car, that is simple to overcome. In short, you would buy an adapter that would plug into one of the 194 bulb bases and then you can power this floor lighting off of that. Then, when you are done with the lighting, you simply pull the LED strips out of the car, unplug the adapter and re-install the bulb. An example of this would be: 5 x Car Festoon T10 BA9S White LED 48SMD Panel Interior Dome Map Light Bulb Lamp | eBay (this shows a few different style adapters that you can use based on which bulb you want to remove).

The LED strips can be made to whatever length you want. The only limitation is you have to cut it at the marking on the strip (ever 3 inches roughly) so you have the complete circuit for the LEDs. But, in most cases, this is not a problem. The only "problem" with this sort of setup is it will require a fair amount of soldering on your part. Not that it is hard soldering, but you will need to get good at being able to solder wires on to the copper pads of the LED strips and you will probably want to create a little harness that you can add to the car to make install a little easier. I can draw up something if that would help you picture what you would be doing.

The other tidbit I would tell you to do is if you go with the RGB style lights, you are going to be running 4 wires to each of the spots that you are going to have the lights. I would recommend getting 4 colors of wiring (preferably red, green, blue, and white). This will make wiring things up easier as you won't have to worry about remembering which wire controls what as the color of the insulation will tell you all that you need to know. Then it is just a matter of making sure that the red wire is soldered to the terminal labeled "R", blue wire to the one labeled "B", etc.

I am looking to take this idea one step further and incorporate it into the headlights and taillights. Thought it would be something to make people wonder. Just can't drive around with the lighting on while going down the road. But, that is a different project for later.

 

Wow! What a great response. Thanks a million...and I'll brush up on my soldering skills (an old HeathKit guy, but out of practise).

 

Thanks for the link, I just bought one of these kits to install in my kitchen!

 

What I would love to find is a 5" strip that goes from green-yellow-red that could be hooked up to the tach via ODB2 that i could attach to the top curve of the instrument binnacle to get a graphical tach for acceleration runs.

 

XJsss, do some looking. There are all sorts of aftermarket things that can do what you are after. You may need to look more in the "hot rod" sections where you are creating your own instrument clusters, but what you are after is out there. Once you get the outputs of that module, I am sure I can come up with a way to make the RGB strip do what you are after.

 

cacamp/overblown, something you may ponder is when you get these kits, they tend to be something that stands out color wise (ie, has a white or copper colored backgroud). This can be easily fixed. What you do is you lay the strip flat before you install it and then you put a drop of Elmer's White Glue over each LED (put on as much as you can so it makes a nice ball on top of the LED). Let the glue dry and then you can spray paint the strip say flat black. Once the paint is dry, then you can go back and using a sharp object (exacto knife, scribe tool, etc), you can dig into the glue (make sure not to go too deep and hit the LED) and it will pop right off. This will leave you with something that should have very little color and will hide very easily in the shadows of the dash or under a seat. I use this technique when doing dioramas for my model trains as I can paint the strip whatever color the top of the box is and then all you see is some small dots of color when the lights are turned on.

 

Great idea with the Elmers......thx.....

 

I had the same feeling. I updated mine with superbrightleds.com LED's (these don't have any leakage leading to low glow) and when I open my car my door lights are Purple and also has the projector logo. I am very happy with it the logo getsas much attention ($20 part) as the rest of the car ...