so i finally had time to replace some of the bulbs in my car with white leds. credit goes to metal maxima from this thread:
http://forums.maxima.org/showthread.php?t=442371
how i did the courtesy lights
the map light
dome light
night shot of courtesy light and key ring light
night shot of dome light and map light. the camera really don't do these lights justice. they are much brighter in person.


for those that want to do this mod i recommend googling 'led calculator' so you can get the correct ohm resistors for your led arrays. also, i found it helpful to (before completely removing and unpluggin the bulb holding units from your car) checking the polarity by using a single led and resistor. i like to do that just because i'm somewhat of a perfectionist and like to plan how my led array is going to be laid out (so you know which way the + and - will have to run).

oh there's more pics (like a basic follow through, like most of my cardomain pages) on my cardomain here:
http://www.cardomain.com/ride/352601/11

thanks for stopping by

 

been there done that, got the tee shirt.

where did you get the leds? i got mine off ebay seller cwithk and every white led fried. my red ones are fine tho.

 

Looks good man,good job

 

hmm, i got them off the same seller. did yours fry do to faulty led's? did you wire it up w/ the correct resistors?

i hope mine last a while. i won't have time to fix it once classes start back up.

 

All of mine fried too, but I am pretty sure that I didnt wire them up correctly. I got my LED's from a friend, but I don't know where he got them from.


I will have to see what these look like in person!

 

looks good, you do very clean work.

how many leds did you use for the key ring?
im about to redo my key ring light and i have some 3mm leds and resisitors, but im a little timid about messing with anything electrical on my car since im not electrical guru. however, i dont want to just buy a bulb for it if i already have leds, unless the key ring was difficult to do.

how about a walk through or mini write up for how you did the key ring?

 

i'm no electrical guru, and i never even touched a soldering iron before until this past week. as for the key ring light:
take apart your steering column. slide the clear plastic thing off along w/ the bulb. the wires that hold the bulb should be able to detach from the clear ring assembly AND at another point maybe 8 inches up beneath the steering column. i detached it there so i could bring the bulb holder harness thing in along w/ the plastic ring. (actually, you can check the polarity before you unplug it, so you know which way your resistor has to go in.
i used 2 3mm led's wired in series with a resistor (330 ohm i believe, but double check before you do yours. so i folded a leg of the resistor, plugged that into the + side of the bulb harness, then folded the last leg of the 2nd led in the chain, and plugged that into the - side of the harness. then i pointed my led's out towards the ring as much as i could.

the key ring wasn't all that hard, i didn't even bother taking pics to post up.

hope that helps.

 

Looks good... it's nice to see a color other than blue for a change.

 

im good with soldering and electronics. i used the resistors sent with them, one per led. i did 90% of the lights and i made a 16 led dome light and it started blinking and such. it ended up going out almost compleatly. i had my friend, who really knows his electronics, do another dome light. he used the same parts, same iron, same everything. they came out great and lasted maybe one month. then they started to blink and go out. i gave up on the leds and took them all out except for the red ones and a few white ones. only 2 white ones work without blinking, in the ash tray and key ring.

 

wow. i'm hoping my leds will last longer than one month, and i wired them up differently than you. i used one resistor for the 20 leds that are in my dome light as opposed to the one resistor/led you used in your dome lights. i'll let you guys know if they fail early or not.

 

Looks good.. i dont like blue anymore either.. i see it too much, that's why i went red!

 

i recently redid my leds from blue to white. white led dome, courtesy, 5 white led for the glove compartment, and 2 each for the map lights.

i was also able to add leds for the climate control for the cold and hot display.

 

Yea Im getting sick of my blue LED's, was thinking of switching over to white. After seeing your pictures, I'm definitely convinced goodjob bro

 

hey i have a question. what type of resistor did u use? what is that orange orange brown??

 

I hear ya on the red... I'm still contemplating on what color I want to do my interior lights, either red or white. Yours looks decent, minus all the glare.

 

go white, its ummmm looks classier....

 

I may do red as well (will match nicely with buttons on HU) the Acura RSX has red interior lights and it looks decent!

 

thats real tight

 

Classier? I'm driving a maxima, not a Bentley.

 

ya, you can't go wrong w/ white. as for any other color, you can pull it off depending on the 'theme' of your car i suppose.

 

Looks great. I was thinking of doing white too. I also thought purple would be interesting because I haven't seen that color done before but I don't know if I'd be brave enought to try it!

 

thats the only reason i choose blue, because my headunit has a blue display. so i decided instead of clashing the colors with the stock greens and yellows, i blued it up. plus the blue is very noticeable, i.e its something everyone always recognizes and compliments me on. especially my blue dome light, thats the most complimented thing in my car.

 

Looks beautiful, my friend...good job!

 

lookin good

 

someone's gotta be the first! try a few little things and see how it looks. i think it could turn out nice.

 

^^^please don't. purple....come on u can't be serious

 

Not a pinkish magenta color, but only if they came in a deeper shade...just an idea.

 

well u could replace all the nissan maxima badges to Bentleys. then u can be rollin big and lookin fly. pretty good idea huh!!!

 

you're joking right?

thanks everyone for the comments

 

470 ohm resistors 1/2watt required = no burn out!

 

thats what i had, 470 ohm and the leds blew. but only the white ones.

 

where do you get those boards, i've seen pics of a few people with them. and what do you call them. I'm guessing you get them from an electronics store or something?

 

its called a pc board and you can get them at radioshack. i think they're about $5 for a big piece and you have to cut them to the right sizes. you can probably go with a smaller one to save a few bucks, i didn't know how much i would use so i just bought the bigger one.

 

Thanks, i have 2 krypton hyperwhit festoon bulbs soldered together, bu i'm thinking of getting a whole bunch of 20,000 mcd LEDs and doing my interior light. How do you get it to not have the spotlight effect, just aim some of them outwards a little?