All righty, as promised, here is my do it yourself guide on how to create ambient lighting in your car. I was inspired to do this by my dad's third generation TL. I like to call it the "moonlight effect" as, well, it reminds me of moonlight shining.

Difficulty Level: Elementary, Soldering Skills required.

As always, I'll give a little bit of information before we get started. So this effect is achieved through the use of a LED (light emitting diode). The power to the LED is taken from the hot wire of one of the vanity mirror lights. I chose to use the driver's side light, but it doesn't really matter. It is wired such that the light will automatically come on when either the parking lights, or headlights are on. You can wire it to a switch if you like, but that is more trouble than it is really worth, because then you have to wire in the switch and find a spot to mount it, etc. So, operating under the assumption that most people will want it to be automatic, that is how I will write this guide.

Like my last DIY, I got to cover my own, er, interests! So here it is again:
And of course, the disclaimer. but if you screw up your car by doing this and try to sue me, Acurazine, or your dog, whatever, you'll lose. You can cross wires while doing this project and create a fire hazard and your car could burn down, the parts that can burn anyway. It is highly recommended that you have experience with soldering and basic analytical circuitry skills.

Now, let's get started!

Tools/Equipment You Will Need:
Screwdriver
Soldering Iron
Solder
Dikes
Wire Strippers
Drill
LED (Size May Vary)
Resistors (Resistance May Vary)
Wire Splicing Connector (I call them "Saddleback Clamps")

First, here is a picture of the finished product. That way you know what we are aiming for.



Now, you should know that you can use a variety of LEDs and resistors to customize the effect as you see fit. I used a 5mm blue LED that operates on 5 Volts, 6 Volts max, with an intensity of 300 millicandelas (300 mcd). But with all LEDs they have a polarity, by definition. That's why the are called light emitting DIODES, current can only flow one way. I used 2200 Ohm resistors, you can play around with different ratings if you like, the lowers the resistance, the brighter the LED, the higher, the more dim. DO NOT TRY TO PUT 12 VOLTS THROUGH THE LED, you will burn it up instantly. I would not go below a resistance of about 1400-1500 Ω and anything greater than 3000 Ω, you probably won't be able to see. This project is a great example of "less is more". If you make the LED too bright, it will look tacky, like way tacky. It is also a good idea to wire the resistors onto both terminals of the LED. A good way to test it out is to use alligator clips and tie into a 12 volt power source, turn our your garage lights and attach the LED to the other end of the alligator clips.

Here is a basic picture of what we are doing. (How many Acura owners does it take to put in a lightbulb?)



One last note, in some of the pictures, you will see that I used a black LED retainer clip, but on the final picture, I didn't. I had an extra cover lying around (I actually had to look up laying vs lying http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/...+lie%2A+lay%2A) so I got a second chance to do this project. The second time around I fit the LED using a friction fit, this is by far, the better approach.

So first, take off your cover from the map light. Mark the center in the width and then towards the edge as where you would like it. Do not put it in the center because it will interfere with your center lightbulb. Take your drill, and starting with a very small bit, drill a hole centered where the light will be. The gradually keep moving up in size until you do a fit check with the LED and it feels very snug, but still possible to get it in and out.

So you should see something like this now. Remember do not use the retainer ring. And there is no need to hot glue it down like I did.



Take your resistors and solder them to the ends of the LED. The long terminal of the LED is always the positive side. You will have to trim the lengths of the terminals of the LED and resistors to make it more compact. Remember when you do this of which side is which.



Place some heat shrink over the solder points. This will help keep it secure and from shorting.



Then add some lengths of wire to both sides. One only needs to be about 4-6 inches long, and the other must reach from the dome light to the chrome piece on the vanity mirror. Standard practice is red for hot, white for ground/neutral. Place some more heat shrink over all your solder joints.



Take out your dome light and your sunglass holder, if you want some more room to work with. There are two screws on each module. DO NOT GO YANKING IT OUT!



Now remove the sun visor.



You should now run the wires through a couple of the small holes in the light housing to bring them to the back. Solder your ground wire to the terminal illustrated in the picture. It's the one to the left of the yellow wire.



Go ahead and put your cover back into the housing. Make sure your wires do not obstruct the light from the dome lightbulb.



Take a straighten out coat hanger and tape the end of your long hot wire to it. Put it through the map light hole and run it to the hole where your vanity mirror is. This part can be a little tricky.



Use the saddleback clip and tie it into the power. There is only one wire, the vanity mirror light grounds itself to the roof of the car.





Go back together with everything and enjoy!



Questions/Comments are welcome.

 

Your just spitting out the DIY's now haha. Looks good how bright is it?

 

Pretty much. My goal is to reach immortality among the legendary members who have made posts that were so successful, they have been stickied! And I'll keep making DIYs until that happens! Although I'm running out of ideas on stuff to make guides for.

It's just bright enough to not draw attention to the bulb itself, but creates a very dim light on the center console area. It's fun to wave your hand around in the light slowly and really see it. It's very subtle, your passenger's may not even realize it's there. But every time you look down towards the center console, you will notice it because you will be able to make out all the shapes there instead of it all being dark and black. I just wish there was a way to hide the bulb itself like in the TL. But our ceiling controls don't really allow for that.

 

I'm going to do kinda the same thing, but with white LED under the car to light up when unlocking the doors. Kinda like giant puddle lights glowing and lighting the ground. Thanks I would not have gotten this idea without reading this post.

 

Of course! Glad to inspire anyway.

You're talking underglow, basically, right?

 

I want the puddel lights to fade out like with the dome light. I really like your Idea of moonlight. You / this should be sticky.

 

Yeah!

 

That would look nice. I think it would be a really classy take on the concept of underglow without the "donk" variable. I once thought about putting LEDs into the door handles that shine into the recess where your hand goes that are activated with the dome light, but I am very hesitant to start that. I have an extra handle that I could practice it on. But the risk is far to great to warrant trying this. I would have to get it down perfectly 5 times in a row (practice one has to be perfect for me to continue).

I'd be interested to see how this turns out, I think Eddie was talking about LED puddle lights that are attached to the underside of the doors, but you'd only see them when they are open. Definitely keep is posted on your project!

 

any after photos of how it turned out? I'm interested in this for fun

 

The pictures of the effect won't take well. Just like when I uploaded pictures of my floor lights. They look great in person but not in pictures.

If you want to do this project, I would highly recommend it. I would actually go with a bit lower resistance than what I used. I compared my effect to my dad's 2008 TL. I would say maybe 1900 to 2000 Ohm resistors, would probably be good.

 

Sorry for bumping, just and to see my favorite DIYs together. Sorry!