Hi guys,

in the process of ordering some special lighting for my car. already have the illuminated doors sills, but wondered what kind of light is under there-is it a long tube, several bulbs, a mouse with a candle?! want to change out the bulb(s) in there and put led's but dont know what type to get. Anyone actually seen inside of one to help me out?

thanks,

ruzo

 

I'd like to know this, too...to see if it's possible to change the color with a simple mod.

Off topic: Honestly...why on earth did they make these blue when every other light in the car is green...although...why they went with boring green for the interior lights in the first place I have no idea either...should of been blue or amber or red.

 

These are not bulbs at all...they are electroluminescent panels. They are flat, and use an voltage converter unit to excite the panel to glow (small 1"x1" black box that steps up voltage at very low current levels). And yes, you can change colors. You can purchase the raw panels from eclectic > www.e-clec-tech.com, then retro-fit panels in place of the original blue. Interesting project that would be...they could be red, pink, whatever...I have changed my entire interior lighting to deep blue by retro-fitting all green bulbs with various blue leds (try superbrightleds.com)...have fun!

 

Thanks for the tip...I may try it.

And wow, I bet your blue instrumentation looks awesome. Question...did you manage even the radio LCD backlight? How hard was all that to do? Have any pics? Very interested!

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Looks like these might work for the door sill:
http://store.yahoo.com/e-clec-tech/elstrip.html

Although wow...now I'm really wondering about retrofitting the rest of the instruments with blue. My car is black with the light grey/charcoal interior...blue would be more fitting than green, IMHO. The green was sort of a downer for me to begin with...looks so 1985.

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Anybody taken one of these apart and know how many EL panels are in there? What about the power supply...how many leads?

 

Looks like these might work for the door sill:
http://store.yahoo.com/e-clec-tech/elstrip.html

Although wow...now I'm really wondering about retrofitting the rest of the instruments with blue. My car is black with the light grey/charcoal interior...blue would be more fitting than green, IMHO. The green was sort of a downer for me to begin with...looks so 1985.

 

Anybody taken one of these apart and know how many EL panels are in there? What about the power supply...how many leads?

 

green's not that bad. i dislike teal/aqua more than green; if i was better with the soldering gun i would swap out the LEDs for red.

 

Red would be nice, too. My Firebird had red lighting on a black/black interior and it was downright evil looking. Very cool, especially since it matched the red exterior. Looked like Darth Vader should be driving it.

My last car was a Sebring Coupe LXi, black with black/tan interior. The lighting was all amber. Very classy looking.

I guess I got spoiled.

Now the Crossfire. Black with black/grey interior and...green lighting? Mmm, nope...not quite right. But I'm just plain picky about this kind of thing. It doesn't bother me...it just could be better. Makes me want to mod, because I'm enough in love with this car to want to tinker with it. Blue or red or white or something would strike me as better. I think it's just that green was so overdone on so many bad cars for a long time that it has a "history" with me that I don't like.

That said, if I could get the door sills to be green, I'd settle for it all just matching. I don't know why they produced that door sill part knowing full well no other light in the car was blue. Except that blue EL tape seems to be the cheapest/most common/oldest variety. The part is already expensive...what's a few bucks more have it to match? I may order one and see how hard it would be to take it apart and swap em out.

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And hey, ctstemicon...is everything that needs replacing an LED already? That is, are you just swapping one LED for another everywhere, or did you come across difficult or different portions? I can handle a soldering iron well enough to swap out LEDs, I guess. But if there's all kinds of step-downs in voltage or oddball parts to figure out...it might be beyond me. I'm CS not EE.

 

And hey, ctstemicon...is everything that needs replacing an LED already? That is, are you just swapping one LED for another everywhere, or did you come across difficult or different portions? I can handle a soldering iron well enough to swap out LEDs, I guess. But if there's all kinds of step-downs in voltage or oddball parts to figure out...it might be beyond me. I'm CS not EE.

 

Whooboy, was a major pain (but worth it)...I started with, from the top down, so to speak, with the Temp Control. This unit pops apart, and inside uses green-rubberized incandescent bulbs (little green bulb condoms!) to illuminate a clear plastic light pipe system (really cheapo illumination system, Valeo controls). I actually drilled pockets in light-pipes and mounted four blue 12 vdc LEDs in light pipe, 12vdc is easily accessible. The used 2 12vdc white LEDs to illuminate the temp setting wheels.You can take the two ***** off unit, and the bulbs are accessible with needle nose pliers behind a little white flap (diffuser), but you need four LEDs to replace the light output of the bulbs (or really bright LEDs with a wide dispersion, or light pipe cannot work).

Next up, replaced every single individual green LED in switchgear (window switches x 2, spoiler, heated seats x 2, locking switch, etc.) with hi-intensity std blue LED. The switches all have a SMD resistor already in place, but you have to break down the switch to component level to remove existing LED. Not recommended unless you have a vacuum operated de-solder tool - standard solder sucker (spring loaded) will rip the el-cheapo traces right off PCB.

As for radio, see earlier posts, I retrofitted VDO 4200RS Navigation system, lighting is already blue, so fits in and has a face plate that is virtually a perfect match to xfire silver plastic.

Much Work, looks great, god I need a life!...ct

 

Wow...do you have pics anywhere in those threads? I have to see this.

Thanks for all the info. I assume the rhetostat still works to dim the lights appropriately?

I'm pretty intimidated about trying to break down the switches to get the LEDs off without tearing off the traces. I don't know if my soldering skills are up to snuff. Probably not the place to find out. : )

 

We are about to buy a Coupe and I have been looking at installing the lighted sills. How much of a job is it to install them?



....sT

 

Any pics of the new blue lighting interior?! Does all the lighting match (same shade/hue)?