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Keep in mind I'm not changing the window button or the unlock/lock buttons, so those will stay the stock greenish white colour.
I also plan on making it even dimmer than what he has.
Last edited by guitarplayer16; 01-31-2015 at 01:30 PM.
i had an install thread for doing this but I think my pictures have since been lost as I no longer use the same picture hosting service. Not only did I do the door handle pockets, but also did the lower door panel cubby hole areas (similar to newer chrysler vehicles). I had a Type S so I used red LED's, but for your application I would definetely go with blue as that's the color used for the overhead ambient lighting as well as the factory footwell lighting on the 07 and 08's.
It looks awesome and was all done by tapping a 12v lighting source already in the door, so there is no need to run wires through the door boot.
Also, I know you said they are flat top, but sometimes even those have a focused beam. if you need to you can use a Dremel with sanding bit and lightly sand the bulb down giving it a frosted look. This will completely scatter the light output and completely fill the door handle pocket (or any other spot you decide to light). This is especially effective for footwells.
I like the subtle lighting as well. I'm by no means talking about super bright light that immediately catches your attention, but just a noticeable, but dim ambient lighting just like the stock overhead light and footwells.
Keep us posted on the progress, your gonna love it. I will throw in a picture or two from my install where I did the door handle pockets and lower door panel compartments in a previous type s.
I'm just looking at the interior at night and I'm still not sure if I made the right choice ordering blue.
The buttons to unlock/lock are green, and so are the window switches.
Blue and green don't mix well, where as white and green would mix better.
It sure makes sense to do it red if you have a Type-S because every button is red.
It also makes sense to do blue if you're doing a LED bulb conversion like DeathMetal did.
Blue ambient lighting + white button lighting matches nice.
Blue ambient lighting + blue button lighting matches nice too.
I simply don't have the time to do the LED button light conversion, so I'm leaving the buttons green.
But green and blue, they don't complement each other nice.
If you're not going to change the color of the lock switch, I'd have to argue that green and white are more complimentary in the location than green and blue.
I'm going to be in the minority here and recommend you hold off until you have white OR change the OE door lighting colors to blue. Green and blue...just ain't gonna work.
Also, I'd recommend purchased an array of resistors to scale down the lighting intensity to your preference. I'd try everything from the 1k to 4k ohm range on a minimum 1/4-Watt scale...you can get those at Radio Shack no problem.
Irrespective of your choice...you're gonna love it. It's such a sweet mod. GL and let us know how you make out.
Can you please provide an example to substantiate this claim?
My anecdotal evidence. Sanding flat tops (& others) has been a long known trick to scatter light when the beam is too focused. Not too sure why you have not encountered this before or trying to disprove him.
Originally Posted by guitarplayer16
Thanks again for the insight, guys.
I'm just looking at the interior at night and I'm still not sure if I made the right choice ordering blue.
The buttons to unlock/lock are green, and so are the window switches.
Blue and green don't mix well, where as white and green would mix better.
It sure makes sense to do it red if you have a Type-S because every button is red.
It also makes sense to do blue if you're doing a LED bulb conversion like DeathMetal did.
Blue ambient lighting + white button lighting matches nice.
Blue ambient lighting + blue button lighting matches nice too.
I simply don't have the time to do the LED button light conversion, so I'm leaving the buttons green.
But green and blue, they don't complement each other nice.
What do you guys think?
I think too much blue is very ricey, plus as you pointed out the greenish white of the rest will likely clash. My 2 cents once again.
Like I said, it's going to be anecdotal evidence. I doubt anyone has really written a topic on sanding flat tops and other LEDs to diffuse light in a less concentrated way. Google will have to do I imagine.
We are talking about sanding an LED, its really not a big deal. Why would I even bother doing it if it didn't provide results? I usually base my input and feedback on personal experience and its what I found to work and help disperse the light evenly. Its so simple to do and take 1 minute per bulb.
I have done several interior LED jobs and every single time I have sanded down my LED's to disperse the light MUCH more uniformly with no hot spots whatsoever. I have found that on flat top LED's even they have hot spots and a very slight focused beam. When I am putting in custom foot well LED's, or door pocket LED's, I want them to fill the entire area with a nice subtle glow of light with no focused areas. I wouldn't waste my time doing it had it if it doesn't provide any results.
I don't have any beam or output shots of flat top LED's, but I can provide pictures of some work that I have done. Again, not trying to start a fight or argue, but it just caught me as odd that you almost seemed to take offense to the fact that this is how I do it and that I recommended it to another person.
Here are the door handle and lower pocket LED's that I installed in a previous Type S of mine. Hard to capture the output how it is in person, but it turned out nice and about the same brightness as the OEM foot well and overhead LED's.
Here are the footwell LED's I installed in my 2012 Grand Cherokee Overland to match the OEM door handle and lower pocket lights.
These are OEM lights on the door panels of the 2011-2013 Grand Cherokee's and what inspired me to do the same thing in my Type S.
We are talking about sanding an LED, its really not a big deal. Why would I even bother doing it if it didn't provide results? I usually base my input and feedback on personal experience and its what I found to work and help disperse the light evenly. Its so simple to do and take 1 minute per bulb.
I have done several interior LED jobs and every single time I have sanded down my LED's to disperse the light MUCH more uniformly with no hot spots whatsoever. I have found that on flat top LED's even they have hot spots and a very slight focused beam. When I am putting in custom foot well LED's, or door pocket LED's, I want them to fill the entire area with a nice subtle glow of light with no focused areas. I wouldn't waste my time doing it had it if it doesn't provide any results.
I don't have any beam or output shots of flat top LED's, but I can provide pictures of some work that I have done. Again, not trying to start a fight or argue, but it just caught me as odd that you almost seemed to take offense to the fact that this is how I do it and that I recommended it to another person.
Here are the door handle and lower pocket LED's that I installed in a previous Type S of mine. Hard to capture the output how it is in person, but it turned out nice and about the same brightness as the OEM foot well and overhead LED's.
*snip pic delete for quote*
Here are the footwell LED's I installed in my 2012 Grand Cherokee Overland to match the OEM door handle and lower pocket lights.
*snip pic delete for quote*
These are OEM lights on the door panels of the 2011-2013 Grand Cherokee's and what inspired me to do the same thing in my Type S.
*snip pic delete for quote*
Cherokee looks great, the TL-S is a bit much for my taste though. =)
I like the pocket & door handles idea, this is definitely on my to-do list. So simple yet such a great ambient lighting mod.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/20-x-LED-3mm-Clear-Cool-White-Ultra-Bright-Flat-Top-Wide-Angle-LEDs-Light-Car-/151022556584?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2329a555a8
There are other listings for 10 bulbs, or 5 bulbs (you only need 4 bulbs for this mod). but for the extra few bucks, might as well get 20.
I just found these from the same seller.
Just placed an order on them.
That's the best part, these mods are so cheap it cost way less than my order of wings last night for super bowl.
I wouldn't even bother getting flat tops. Just find any led that is prewired that way you don't have to worry about adding resistors yourself. You can make any LED flat top in a matter of seconds with a dremel or sand paper. Prewired with resistors is what's key.
i used the flat top on my interior door handle, however the area is so small that even if it was focused/beam, you cant tell. Sanding it to make it diffuse more wont hurt though.
I still find it really weird that they did green lighting on the door switches on the base TL's. The funny thing is I had an 07 base TL and don't ever recall noticing that. Maybe the color is close enough to white that you wont really even notice. Either way though I still say blue is the way to go. Having factory blue overhead ambient light (and footwell if you have an 07/08), then having white on the doors would just look weird to me. I personally like consistency. Also, if the green door switch lights do clash with the blue, then an easy fix for that would be to change the door switch colors. The perfect way to make it white to match the rest of the OEM white illumination would be to get the blue covers that they use. For those that don't know, to achieve the white look, they actually place blue covers on the yellowish incandescent bulbs. Get a couple of those and you will have 100% matching lighting....assuming they are using a green cover on the door switches. Does anyone know about what they did to get the green on the door switches? Is it a green bulb cover instead of blue used in the rest of the car?
The door switches are actually soldered on, which is the main reason I don't want to go through the conversion.
If the radio button lighting weren't soldered on also, I would love to do the LED conversion.
I believe even with the blue cap removed, it wouldn't be white as an LED.
I'll be taking a picture of blue, and white and compare so you guys can decide.
Right now, I just don't see blue matching with the green buttons, they clash. The only blue in the car is the gauge, which only the driver can see, and the ambient lighting in the overhead console, which is BARELY noticeable. The rest of the illumination in the car during night time is the greenish white buttons.
Last edited by guitarplayer16; 02-02-2015 at 12:34 PM.
I still find it really weird that they did green lighting on the door switches on the base TL's. The funny thing is I had an 07 base TL and don't ever recall noticing that. Maybe the color is close enough to white that you wont really even notice. Either way though I still say blue is the way to go. Having factory blue overhead ambient light (and footwell if you have an 07/08), then having white on the doors would just look weird to me. I personally like consistency. Also, if the green door switch lights do clash with the blue, then an easy fix for that would be to change the door switch colors. The perfect way to make it white to match the rest of the OEM white illumination would be to get the blue covers that they use. For those that don't know, to achieve the white look, they actually place blue covers on the yellowish incandescent bulbs. Get a couple of those and you will have 100% matching lighting....assuming they are using a green cover on the door switches. Does anyone know about what they did to get the green on the door switches? Is it a green bulb cover instead of blue used in the rest of the car?
JT
Thing is, everything that is white in the car has a slight green tint, so if you end up changing the door lock button you end up changing everything for consistency. It's a never ending war.
Guitarplayer and polobunny,
I dont think you guys are understanding what im saying. Im not saying to change the door switch bulbs to LED's, im saying simply change the rubber bulb cover that makes it green to the blue cover that is used on all the other interior switches to make them an exact match. Again, no bulb removal is necessary, just the rubber cover that easily pulls right off. Then matching the blue ambient light to a green door switch bulb would no longer be the issue because the switch will be more white like the rest of the car.
We are talking about sanding an LED, its really not a big deal.
I'm not talking about sanding LEDs, im referring to your erroneous statement that "Also, I know you said they are flat top, but sometimes even those have a focused beam", which is a fundamental contradiction of the physics that dictate the vertex angle emitted at the P-N junction.
A round, or hemispherical lens, will collect diffused light whereas a flat top has a very slight amount of concavity which provides the wide angle of diffusion.
Please refrain from making statements such as this as it creates an unnecessary amount of confusion on the matter.
Guitarplayer and polobunny,
I dont think you guys are understanding what im saying. Im not saying to change the door switch bulbs to LED's, im saying simply change the rubber bulb cover that makes it green to the blue cover that is used on all the other interior switches to make them an exact match. Again, no bulb removal is necessary, just the rubber cover that easily pulls right off. Then matching the blue ambient light to a green door switch bulb would no longer be the issue because the switch will be more white like the rest of the car.
all the lights on the door panel(except the memory seats) are soldered on and wont fit those "condom" covers.
Here's a pic of the back of the pcb when I was doing some work on it(this is the pcb that lights up the window switches):
I understand the point of the light green sorta clashing with blue. However I'd still do blue. If you are totally OCD of course everything should match and you'd want to retrofit everything to LEDs.
But if you are not going to go to that extent (Like me; Lazyiness. Mixed with admiration and envy for those who have done it.) Then at least reprogram your mind and convince yourself to think in this frame of mind: Button are buttons. Ambient lights are ambient lights. And so I convinced myself to think this way so that it wouldn't constantly bug me in my perfectionist mind. If you do white, yes it is neutral and safe, but it won't really match anything else in particular. It may also distract your peripheral vision at night to a slight extent. Blue will match the ambient lights and blend in a bit better IMO. Handle lights are a kind of lighting that is just sorta there when you need to look there and grab the handle, that's all. Your eyes shouldn't go there otherwise, they should blend in.
Oh and BTW, just in case you didn't know. Nobody else notices these kind of things when they get in your car. They will ALL say "Wow, cool!" no matter what. It's all in your head. And don't dare mention these kinds of dilemmas to them, they will all laugh at you. Hahaha. I love AZine, you guys are the only ones that understand this.
Whatever you gotta do to do, do you. The things we do for own weirdo LED happiness, lol.
Last edited by rockyfeller; 02-04-2015 at 01:01 PM.
Some people have mentioned that the white looks out of place, and the green buttons don't attract too much attention when you look at it as a whole.
The blue on the other hand matches the gauges and the blue accent rings on the radio, and the ambient overhead light.
I determined that Acura designed our interior with blue as the ambient lighting in our car, as if it were white, the stereo rings and overhead lighting and gauges would be white.
01-31-2015, 01:27 PM
I used to sand mine as well long before they developed new epoxy dies for the LEDs as well, great work!
