So, I finally had some time to take apart my door and do the power window buttons. I hope that this will steer people in the right direction. As of the moment, I only completed the front doors, so here goes:

Disclaimer: I or Acurazine.com is not responsible for any damages that you may cause your vehicle or self while following this DIY guide. DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Materials:
1. Phillips screw driver (#1, #2, and a set of small screwdrivers)
2. Flat head screw driver (for prying)
3. Soldering Iron and some solder
4. Wire Cutter
5. LEDs (any color that you choose, the original is green)

Before you start this project I highly suggest that you do other LED projects first, such as the climate control, because this is a bit more difficult than the others with more chances to screw up!

Procedure:

Step 1:
Remove driver side door panel; instructions can be found HERE (I hope that CaliChris517 doesn't mind...)
Then place the door panel on a nice soft surface that won't scratch it. It should look like this:

Step 2:
Now remove the power window assembly from the door. There are four screws holding it:

Step 3:
Now pry open the power window assembly with a flat head screw driver.
Step 4:
Unscrew the four screws on the first circuit board:

Step 5:
Carefully lift the first circuit board up (from the right of the above pic) and unscrew the screw holding the second circuit board:

Step 6
Now for the fun part. Once everything is out you should have something that looks like this:

Mark the direction that the original LEDs are facing and cut the original LEDs about 3/4 way up the LED.
Step 7
Cut the leads of the LEDs you want to put in to about the same length as the original LEDs (not the length when you made the cut but the full length).
Step 8
Get your soldering iron and solder the new LEDs in place (remembering the way that the original LEDs were facing). The finished product should look something like this:

I put a water bottle cap in between the two circuit boards so that it wouldn't flop around while I was soldering.
Step 9
Before reassembling everything, plug in the switch assembly (including the button for turning off the passenger window controls) to check your work. When everything checks out, put everything back together!

CONGRATS! you finished one door!

The passenger side door is almost the same except a lot simpler. Instead of four LEDs there is only one like so:

Just follow the same directions as the driver side door.

If there are any questions feel free to post. It feels good to finally give back to this AWESOME community!

 

nice write up. Thanks

 

Good job!

If I may could I add my ?


I would suggest picking up some solder braid from Radio Shack and use it to remove the solder from the original LEDs. That way they are easier to remove and replace with new LEDs. Also this reduces the amount of heat transfered to the new LEDs which could lead to possible early failure or even complete failure before you even hook everything back up.

 

nice job man, another led mod i gotta add to the list haha

 

any idea why the light wont work on the all of them but the drivers after doing the soldering ? also the switches on the drivers door doesn't roll up/down the windows anymore. only the drivers door will roll up and down.

 

Did you remember to plug in the switch for the deactivation of the passenger windows control?

 

Check the window lock switch, when it is on all the window switch lights in the car, except the Auto for the driver, turn off. I got hung up on this when i did mine, i accidentally pressed down the switch while reinstalling.

 

thank alot bro this going on my next mod

 

what does the final product look like? I do notice on the switches that it should light up, but it never does

 

I shall take pics tonight. Sorry I didn't respond sooner. I was on vacation.

 

From where did you get the LED? Which type of LED is it?

 

I bought them from ebay. Use the 3mm size LEDs. At first I used 13000 mcd LEDs but soon found out that they were too bright. So I switched them with 5000 mcd LEDs.

 

Here are pics at night (sorry for the blurry... I dont know how to avoid that for shots in the dark):

 

Looks good, I followed this over the weekend, and it was a good help. Should have done the mirror switch too while you had the door panel off.

 

From who did you buy them from? I check ebay and their is a lot of choices, some sell them in packs of 100, do you have any left over?

 

I bought the 5000 mcd LEDs from hktaiyuen. Sorry I used them all...

 

I've used mckenkenken and have had good outcomes.

 

hey what does the mcd means??? like 6000mcd 12000mcd 2000mcd etc.??? im new at this and wanna try doing this. .. what you did to your car is what i wanna do to mines, i wanna do all my lights blue. just wanna do whicih MCD blue should i buy. thankss o yea and what does the 12v mean? whats the diff between 12v and the mcd??

 

Hmmm. This will be hard to explain without getting too technical. Well for starters MCD stands for millicandela. A candela is an SI unit of luminous intensity. For more info on candela click here . 12v stands for 12 volts. Now this is difficult to explain so just read this . Most cars run on 12v-14v.

 

so what will i need for my car? i have a 02 type s tl and i wanna do everything blue, what kind should i get? just like the pics up there

 

Well to be honest with you, you need a bunch of each if you want all the colors to be even. When I used 12000 mcd LEDs on the window buttons they were to bright so I used 5000 mcd. As for the rest of the dash I used 12000 mcd except for the climate control which uses 6000 mcd. HOWEVER, it is up to you on how bright you want the lights to turn out. The higher the mcd rating the brighter!

 

all i wanna do is match everything tha same, so basically i want my color the same as yours, i want it blue blue, not light blue or any other type of blue, just reg blue, where did you get all your lights at??

 

Ebay and I got my climate control kit from ledautomotive.com. You should try ledautomotive first, and then when you get the hang of it start buying LEDs from ebay.

 

i got some 3mm blue 5000mcd led's, will these work? (the reason im not sure is they are 3.2-3.8v)

 

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?

 

Hey this sh1t is wicked, I did this mod last night and it looks so nice, did both doors but left the the memory seats button green, not sure about doing it just yet, next the dash, will posts picks of door soon

 

are there any solderless kits out there for the door panels? And my clock is very dim compared to the rest of the lights. Any ideas why?

 

sorry no solder kits as far as i know. is your clock light LED? if so you may need to angle the LED towards the plastic diffuser.

 

ya it is led

 

im currently soldering the leds to the board from the drivers side.... only question i have is why are all the window switch lights off?....maybe the stock bulbs are gone?....is there a fuse or something that will power them back on?....i hope the drivers side will light up with the new bulbs

 

nevermind....they all turned on after i did the drivers side door.....looks alooot better then the cheap stock leds.

gotta do the rest of the doors and then ill post pics.

btw, does anyone know if i need a resistor to do the fog light button, square mirror button, hazard button etc?

thanx in advance

 

Nice

 

For those who installed blue.
Did you guys changed original resistors? I've checked V output and it was around 2.0-2.2
but blues are 3V

 

^ answer:

3V 3mm blue - will work!

 

thread revive!!!

My driver side window switch only has 2 bulbs with housings that screw into the first board and the switches themselves have diffusers...where do I get the bulbs??