I've been meaning to start a progress thread but just haven't made the time, usually too busy working on the projects! I just bought my TL in March but have already been stacking up the mods. The progress thread will have to wait but I was excited to complete my LED conversion so I wanted to post some pics! I'm not a noob to LEDs over the past 4-5 years i've been getting more involved and in depth with my electronics projects so I was really excited to start from scratch with a new car. My last car I did the whole car with the hole/through style leds and I always had issues with space and failures. SMDs are a whole new animal but very easy to work if you have a pair of tweezers. SMDs are inherently more reliable by design but I still prefer to under drive my LEDs by using higher resistance. For my dash/doors/overhead I used all SMDs. For my License plate/reverse/door lights/glove box I used 1W or 3W start LEDs with a driver. I still have a few more areas to do such as illumination to the little cubbies in the dash that light when you open the door. Also isle lighting is on the list but it will be installed with a dimmer switch I still need to figure out how I want it to work.

Its late so I'm not going to do a heading for every picture and some are not in the correct series but none the less I hope you enjoy and let me know if you have any questions!! www.Hidplanet.com has been my major source for much of my LED knowledge there are some very talented people over there!



































GLOVE BOX




Center Consol Light





License Plate Lights







Current look


Still Trying to decide on CF trim or keep the wood?

 

Nice, fighter plane cockpit

 

LED's look nice.
I would say go with carbon fiber.

 

x2.

makes me want to learn...
brb.

 

go with the cf trim it makes the car look a lot sportier on the inside .. LEDS look really sweet

 

cf trim lol

 

damn, nice work.

go with the cf

 

Can all this be done to the 3GEN Type S ? This would be awesome .

 

LEDs can be retrofit in to any TL, there are a boatload of HOW-TOs in the garage

Looks good, Rog

 

I myself wont buy a Type S jus because I hate the red ambient and gauge lighting. I will gladly pay for this work done though. I dont want any accidents happening.

 

very nice work! I've done my whole interior with my accord before. this must've took you many hours of work.

any hot spots so far?

 

Roger I'm glad you got this done and made a post! You're less than 5 miles from my house and I have yet to drop by and check this out!

I'm glad you finished this project but now it's time for the coilovers

Oh and do the CF interior. Like others have said, it looks sportier.

 

AWESOME WORK Rog Stick to the wood though

How hard is it to remove the center console?

 

Roger, yeoman's work man! You can't go wrong with the Carbon Fiber....trust me on that.

 

looks damn good.. do cb.. it does make it look way sportier...

 

Damn that looks amazing!

 

Would it be cool if we just traded cars? NBP must be hard to keep clean all the time and surely you hate driving the 6MT in traffic, right? Right. I'll even pay for shipping...

Jk. Awesome job man. Your TL just keeps getting better. And I'd probably do CF instead of the wood.

 

Was it hard to do the cup holder lights?

 

Great work!

 

Looks Good.

+1 on CF interior

 

That looks so sick.

 

Nice work Rog! I wish I knew how to download the trip computer hack. The white LEDs compliment the blue ones really well!

 

i love the amount of work you put into the leds.

 

look great!

 

That looks awesome Rog! I'm thinking I want to do my interior led conversion now. Getting bored. This kind of stuff looks fun. And I'm sure it looks much better in person. I have a ton of questions for you regarding this. I'll pm you soon. You didn't touch the LEDs around the stereo knobs right? Those are already LEDs aren't they?

Again awesome work!

 

No need to touch those unless you want to do a color change, they are LEDs.

 

Ok, yeah, that's what I thought. What's the difference between what you did, which looks awesome BTW. and what Roger did? You made some kind of custom circuit board. Was that for easier led soldering?

My type-s has ALL red illuminated buttons. I'm thinking I want to add the white LEDs in the same spots as in the pics. Just to break-up all the red. I'd also change the red caps to red LEDs too of course. Is th dimming feature lost with the replacement of the LEDs?

 

Roger did what I attempted to do the first time, but I was not pleased with the results, although either method can be utilized. LED soldering will always be easier when attaching directly to a copper substrate, so the board would win in terms of ease, but I reiterate - both will provide the same results.

I have not tried dimming w/ the LEDs, although I would imagine it is lost as the incandescents have a far more linear output relative to supplied power, LEDs, ehhh...not so much.

You know as well as I do it's only a matter of time before you do this, so shoot me a PM if you have any other questions

 

Nope no hot spots to speak of, using SMDs really helps with this as the output is 120 deg + usually

You should swing by today and check them out!

The blue around the radio knobs are already LEDs although they are a different wavelength of blue more a blue/green or teal when compared to the LEDs I used which are a deep royal blue. Its not that noticeable but I may change them out at some point to the deeper blue. ALso I highly suggest using red LEDs behind areas like the emergency button and the red arrows it gives them a deep red color without the washed out red look you get with white. Same with the gauge I will be taking that apart soon and swapping out the needle illumination lights with red LEDS because they look orange compared to everything else. I am actually trying to get a 07-08 base gauge to retro in I like that gauge better then mine.


Here check out one of my OLD DIYs from my Acura Legend the needles are so red a nice candy apple color its amazing the difference!

http://www.acuralegendwiki.org/image...Gauges_DIY.pdf

 

ok man, now you're just showing off! the results look awesome. the work involved looked like it took a long time and alot of patience. amazing work man, major props. what type of soldering iron did you use on the TL leds? i saw pics of it on the table but couldn't tell. is it the normal pen style soldering iron? or do you have a special tiny tip on it?

 

looks great dude. inside and out.

 

i like your cup holders..

 

impressive roger...

 

Good job, Roger! Thanks for the tips on how to get a nice, deep red color.

 

Rog,
Pm'ed you a few days ago, dunno maybe your pm box is full, I know alot of research on your part was done to find the correct SMD's, resistors and whatnot. For us brave souls who wish to embark on such a task a link or some info on which SMD/resistors combo to use would greatly be appreciated. Or a maybe a pm

 

Jaime,
Check the 3G garage for a number of threads by DeathMetal and myself detailing our work. Everything is right there.

 

shoulda checked there first thanks, its just that

" I am just trying to get a grasp on what output rating I need to get a decently bright SMD. I have searched through digikey, newark, and mouser so far without much luck most seem very weak. I would imagine using white SMDs for redoing interior lighting is fairly common I was really hoping someone would just give me a link and say order these they are great I use these all the time!!"

i'll get this done. theres a ton of info out there just gotta sort it all out. im in no hurry, and i know this is not an overnight project so its cool. Thanks for the help DM and dwb993

 

Sorry man I have a bad habit of looking at PMs on my phone and forgetting to respond later. I'll get a list together with links for the parts I used

 

damn dude!!! that would be great! i've been doing some research and am learning alot. ive seen a ton of 3-5mm led conversions, however i really like the sleek and neatness of the SMD's.

however i wont be using the blue ones but rather red in combination with white. you used red SMD's in your conversion too i believe, how were those in comparison to the mcd's of the white? i want them to match as much as possible.

 

looks good....it also looks really time consuming