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-   2G TL (1999-2003) (https://acurazine.com/forums/2g-tl-1999-2003-98/)
-   -   DIY: door handle LEDs (https://acurazine.com/forums/2g-tl-1999-2003-98/diy-door-handle-leds-613711/)

TwinTurbo335 08-08-2007 10:18 PM

^ LMFAO how old are u 5?

inthezone 08-08-2007 10:32 PM


Originally Posted by friskoplayer
^ LMFAO how old are u 5?

maybe, but since when can a kid afford $1000's into this hobby?

TwinTurbo335 08-08-2007 11:52 PM

many kids these day can afford anything. kids with a ps3. wii xbox 360 computer.. btw..rc cars aint 1000.

Davinci27 08-09-2007 12:22 AM


Originally Posted by friskoplayer
many kids these day can afford anything. kids with a ps3. wii xbox 360 computer.. btw..rc cars aint 1000.

WRONG!!!...R/C Cars can and are $1000 or more. Do your research, don't just go to your local Radio Shack. The cars in pics are not your average R/C cars.

02TLSfan 08-09-2007 01:05 AM

^^True, a friend of mine has a couple R/C cars and an R/C heli that he's put some money into that are pretty damn fast. These things run on a gas/oil mix too, you can upgrade the motors and tweak the fuel pumps, even different tires and wheels.

bhavin3623 08-09-2007 01:20 AM

yea gas rc cars are fast as hell.. btw nice job wit the door handles

sistom 08-09-2007 06:19 AM

I am staying out of this one.

TwinTurbo335 08-09-2007 11:33 AM

i got my gas rc car when i was a kid. it doesnt cost 1k. it only cost 1k is because you want the stores to build it for you it cost me $250 if you build it yourself. and mines probably faster than yours. mines went 50 mph. and this is a car forum why are u discussing how to put LED onto your rc car. its a totally different concept. go to some rc forum and ask

Topher707 08-09-2007 12:37 PM

can we keep this thread on topic please... Don't want it getting locked or anything.

caligirl2k 08-10-2007 10:10 PM

Man thats nice...

InspiredAcuraLover 08-10-2007 10:53 PM

Sweet..

BOSSIN$TL 10-31-2007 11:57 PM

sooo in essence you could do this same procedure and fashion two rods from your blinds, a little work with the dremel and have some homemade LED side mirror blinkers? just tap it to the wire that goes to your blinkers and your all set. right?

devst8n 12-12-2007 09:56 PM

I have now completed this installation and I wanted to point out a few things to anyone trying this. First off the write up from CaliChris it great, and very detailed so wicked job. I wanted to mention a few points.

By making the modification you are turning on the interior door lights on both driver and passenger door. This is why the resulting fuse blew as the lights on each door draw approximately 1-2 amps. Add that with your interior light and voila. The current draw on these LED's with a resistor as low as 470ohm (assuming 14.4V) is max 3 milli-amp each. This means 4 LEDS would be max of 12 miliamps ( or 12/1000th) of an amp. This is less than your radio uses on standby.

Secondly I would suggest you look to adjust/change the bulb in the doors or interior light to one of an LED fashion to lower the overall current. Fuse ratings are set by ACURA based on not only the load but the wire they specify. They use a smaller wire on lower current circuits as its always cheaper. Although you may think 2 lights loading on this is minimal, this resulting current increase easily overload the wire and cause a fire. Same logic you use in your house wiring, you never put a larger fuse on and existing circuit or you can have big fire.

Also as with any wiring project I would suggest adding an inline fuse at minimum from the dome trigger you tap into. If the wire you have run to either the connectors or inside the door shorts out you could seriously damage your wiring harness and againt risk a fire.
I personally have run my power from a new circuity with a simple 5A 12v Relay as not to load the dome circuit. Also if you wire the LED resistors right after the fuse after the dome trigger you make it wiring better as any short circuits downstream of the connection (door or otherwise) will be limited by the current of the resistor and cant damage wires etc.

Lastly I also couldnt get the wires to run cleanly through the side without any rubbing no matter how hard I tried. The clearance wasnt there. What I did was drill a hold inside the door in between the two rubber bumb stops. This allowed the wire to still go through the side and be mounted out of sight but to run free and clear. I hope to be posting a pic shortly on this.

Thanks again for the great DIY, no one in my area has this sort of mod so its sweet.

BOSSIN$TL 03-08-2008 02:43 AM

aight soo if anyone knows which chord goes to the blinker i'd greatly appreciate a little help, Im going to tap the led in the door to the the overhead lights and the blinker and see how it works out. :wish:

Hobogaragesale 03-19-2008 01:09 PM

Wow, how do you guys figure this stuff out? Seriously impressed.

Couple questions:

Ebayed some LEDS: http://cgi.ebay.com/100X-UltraBright...QQcmdZViewItem
-100 10,000mcd Ultra bright white LCDs with resistors. Pretty sure this is what I want right?

-Do I need to do anything specific to my battery before doing this, seems like some guys recommend unhooking it... I really don't want to electrocute myself... or more importantly ruin my car :tongue:

-Do I need to get different fuses, like the 10amp one?

-Can someone elaborate on the process behind "Tapping" into the existing wires. I understand the basic idea behind it... I just don't know how to tap wires... or how to wire wires to other wires/dome trigger (:what:?).

I'm pretty determined to do this mod. But if you guys think that maybe this is out of my league, I'm happy to listen. I know my limitations. sort of...

Thanks, jp

srtorelli 06-03-2008 10:28 PM

works for me using this to wire my neons

skyline98 06-15-2008 06:27 PM

OK I have went over this DIY 10 times but for some reason my LEDS only work when i open the door, i have tapped in to the correct wires, anyone help WTF?

skyline98 06-16-2008 01:31 PM

I think i figured it out. The Wiring in the CL and the TL are different. ANy CL owers do this mod? Anywho working on figuring what needs to be different for the CL should have it figured after work will post results.

skyline98 06-17-2008 11:32 AM

Raining too bad last night, plan on getting this figured tonight.

Any Cl ownerss get this done?

Mister_TL 07-24-2008 09:09 PM

this has to be one of the coolest mods i have seen...extremely good looking especially on the SSM..definitely going to be on the list of things to do asap!! amazing its just amazing

Mister_TL 07-24-2008 09:11 PM


Originally Posted by BOSSIN$TL
aight soo if anyone knows which chord goes to the blinker i'd greatly appreciate a little help, Im going to tap the led in the door to the the overhead lights and the blinker and see how it works out. :wish:

def put pictures up i want to see how it turns out on the tl's

nayaab88 08-24-2008 03:27 AM

Can't i just wire it directly to the dome light? i mean if i figure out a way to run a tap straight from the dome light to the doors can this work?

OR can i use a fuse tap (http://www.nocablezone.com/images/fuse.jpg) and tap the fuse for the domelight??

99 Acura TL 01-01-2009 09:43 PM

That looks amazing!!! i was wondering how easy is it to have these door handle LED's connected to the blinkers?? that way they're like side markers.
has anyone tried it yet? can anyone make a D.I.Y for linking them to the blinkers...that would be very helpful.

nf3d0149ab 01-01-2009 09:55 PM

^ Really...? :scratch:

You REALLY want to be rolling around a corner or sitting at an intersection with your doorhandles blinking....?

Sounds like some major :rice:

Skeete32 01-31-2009 11:27 AM

I know the resistor is to reduce power going to the l.e.d. Instead of having to go through all that soldering couldn't you have just put a higher reister on the main powerline ? Yes I know you would still need to change the bulbs but this would eliminate it?

Skeete32 01-31-2009 03:12 PM

sorry wrong tread it was for the window switches

ACURA`TL`TYPE-$ 02-08-2009 02:27 PM

so why do u need to tap into the driver side? I tough the wires from the driver side connect to the passenger side. so why tap the driver side? what to tap.?

shortiez08 06-03-2009 02:44 PM

Candelas?
 
Could you please let me know how many candelas your leds were for your door handles? I know this is a late post but it would help me out a lot.

jjrose2006 06-04-2009 11:35 AM

leds dont go all the way off
 
hi i have this mod done and was working perfectly until i replaced the interior bulbs with leds also. now the door handle leds and the leds on the inside of the doors dont go all the way off but have a faint glow even when they should be completely off. did i screw something up or do i just need to put a load resistor in there somewhere? i dont want my battery going dead, yeah i know leds barely sip power but sometimes i go a week or two without driving my car.

1134 09-21-2009 09:26 AM

I am finding one part of the DIY confusing. Why am I tapping into each door light? Shouldn't I just run the wires to each door handle LED, and have them all connect and then just tap once into the dome light? I don't understand why I need to individually tap into the door lights? Also can I just run all the lines connected to a fuse tap in the dome light spot?

TLin401 09-21-2009 09:35 AM

They all need to be connected to the wire because if they aren't then you won't get power to them. Also they all will come on when you unlock your doors.

1134 09-21-2009 09:45 AM


Originally Posted by TLin401 (Post 11331851)
They all need to be connected to the wire because if they aren't then you won't get power to them. Also they all will come on when you unlock your doors.

Yea I got that. I just don't see why i'm tapping wires on both sides of the car? Wouldn't it be less work to wire all the LED wires together and then only tap the dome light once?

1134 09-21-2009 09:51 AM

After rereading the instructions for the tenth time, I can only conclude that the DIY lists 2 different ways to wire these lights. Either by tapping into the door lights (first method shown), or tapping directly into the dome light (second method shown), can anyone confirm this for me? I don't want to end up tapping into more wires than I have too.

Skeete32 09-22-2009 11:31 AM

1134 don't do it that way.... I made that mistake and it cost me $300 for a new fuse module. I'm scared to even try it again. It looked cool when I had the 3 lights working until I blew it when I connected the 4th. Take the time connect the left side to the drivers side and the right to the passenger side, I connected it all to the passenger side not knowing that the driver side had it to, make sure you disconnect the battery if your wires touch it will blow the fuse, but when I did that I caused my dome light to stay on thats when i found out that I blew the module

1134 09-22-2009 02:52 PM


Originally Posted by Skeete32 (Post 11335731)
1134 don't do it that way.... I made that mistake and it cost me $300 for a new fuse module. I'm scared to even try it again. It looked cool when I had the 3 lights working until I blew it when I connected the 4th. Take the time connect the left side to the drivers side and the right to the passenger side, I connected it all to the passenger side not knowing that the driver side had it to, make sure you disconnect the battery if your wires touch it will blow the fuse, but when I did that I caused my dome light to stay on thats when i found out that I blew the module

:thumbsup:Thanks for the headsup. Glad my lights didn't come yet or else I probably would have done the same.

ACURA_3.2TL_2001 03-22-2010 04:23 PM

thanks alot needed this

rhbihm 06-13-2010 08:18 AM

dear god

thelastaspec 06-13-2010 01:11 PM

Great idea and job! looks great!

I'll share some of my "learning's" with my TL!

MR101 10-10-2010 06:44 PM

Crap spent my whole sunday doing this and didnt get anywhere at the end of it all i ended up having all of the leds stay on no matter what even if the car was off and dome light off??? Dont know what to guys?

DaveS221 10-10-2010 10:25 PM

this is a rough guess here an would like this to be verified but, i think you have your power hooked up to the wrong fuse. check the diagram on the fuse box and make sure your power is hooked up to the dome light one.


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