hey, just thought id put up some pics of my interior for those interested. Last summer i redid my climate control and everything in the center console. Now finally got around these last couple days to do my gages, window switches, key switch light, plus i made some led bars that will go by the feet and a short one to go in the center console tray thing.

dont have pics of the led bars yet although they are installed, wont get good pics til tonight.

here are the pics photobucket

i have tons of pics of the stuff all taken apart too so if anyone cares they can ask.

if anyone has more in detail questions of what i used/how i did stuff ill gladly answer

im gonna get a few more better pics tonight of the finished product all together in my car...

 

Nice job man. Looks really good. I'm just not a huge fan of red. But like a said nice job.

 

really nice job. i wanna do the same thing, it reminds of bmw interior lights.. couple of question though..... what color l.e.d's did you use and where did you buy them ?

 

red leds, bought them off ebay, best deal. for the gages i used the 25k mcd ones cause originally it wasnt very bright with 5000mcd. in some of the pics they look like they have an orange tint but they look red in real. also when doing the gages i sanded the lenses on the leds so the light would spread out more and reduce hot spots

 

Great Work! Turned out very nicely.

 

sick man, thats pretty much what im hoping to do over the summer. how about posting a 'how to' thread on this for us that are new to doing this stuff.

 

Did you do the red lights in the headunit? It looks exactly like mine but mine is green...bleh. Also how did you manage the red clock? I have mine turned to white using the clear colored paper stuff, but I could never get mine to red. Great job though! A write up would be great, that's one of my plans for this summer.

 

as for posting a how to thread, that would be pretty redundant since i used how to threads for almost all of it.

props to this thread

and more specifically:
Defroster and Hazard
Climate Control
Window Switches
Gages1
Gages2
Clock Color

Fang_DH - to make my clock red I used red celluphane tissue paper and then used like 5 layers of it to go from white to pink to red. It makes it basically impossible to read during the day but at night you have a red clock. gotta give some to get some i guess. for the head unit i didnt change anything in that. all the buttons are stock red then it has a blue screen.

other lights that I can think of that I replaced that i dont think are covered in the above links are the light for the ashtray and the keyswitch light. But after you have experience with LEDs from all the other stuff those are no prob to figure out on your own.

 

got some hot spots there (climate control and gauges), you should put an led in each climate control button, and like 4 around the fan speed ****. Maybe some more behind the gauges too, other than that looks pretty good.

 

I do have an led behind each button in the climate control but ya, i agree with you on the speed ****. For the AC button the way its layed out, the led doesnt go right behind the button but off to the side, thats why that is a little dim.

As for the gages, in the pic where its lit up in my lap, you can see I added 11 extra leds that are scattered in there (those are the ones lit) plus there are 10 more (two in each of the plug ins where the 194 bulbs used to be, not lit up), plus i have 1 behind each needle. That makes a total of 25 leds in my gages. The only really noticable bad spot in the gages is right below the 120mph where its a little dim.

 

your gauges look better than i thought it would look, honestly.

do this for your fan speed:


+ the stock one (location), to achieve this:


camera actually makes it look worse, real life theres 0 hotspots around fan speed.

the cold/hot bar has since been changed to a white LED (along with the clock changed to white), which lights it up MUCH better.

 

wow that really looks nice, after seeing this i will probly redo my issues with my climate control. here i thought i was done but I got all week off before work next week

 

haha, you should add diodes to your leds while you're in there. if not they WILL die out prematurely (few months, one by one), i found this out the hard way.

 

diodes? why? Dont those just make current only flow one way? - i thought leds are basically a form of diode.

plus I dont see why the leds would die out. They are said to last 100,000 hrs or whatever.

 

oo, nice lights did you have to put resistors for those LEDs?

 

ya for the leds that replace regular bulbs i needed to put a resistor in series with it.

 

yes diodes are like a valve, but for current flow. If you don't add them, the electrons will flow back into the LED causing them to fairly quickly burn out. It will happen in a few months if you dont add them, trust me, Ive been down this road. I've modded these things more than twice.. talk to metal maxima, the king of LEDs. He'll tell you the same.

you dont have to protect the leds connect straight to the board however, they're protected already (theres diodes on the board somewhere). But the stand alone ones, absolutley.

 

ok thanks for the tip

 

Looks good.

 

looks good! good job! but is it me or your inversed your rear defrost and hazard switch ( I thought hazard switch was closer to the driver?) ehehehe
nonethe less, , good job!

 

oh ya haha, i forgot about that. last summer i when i redid those lights i switched those around on purpose cause i figured i use my defroster alot more often than my hazards so i wanted it closer to the driver side.

 

You don't have to add diodes!! They won't die out prematurely, whoever told him that is full of it...I have had my leds in my car for over 6 months now and no problem ever, bright as ever.......He must have not used the correct leds in his.......

 

I love the red my buddy just got a new Audi and every thing is red I fell in love haha

 

sorry, but you're wrong. and Metal Max has an electronics degree, he knows what hes doing... mine lasted almost a year without burning out, but they did.

Others ive seen go for less, however.

 

can anyone do this?? i'd like to do it, but....

 

Well you said they die out within a few months, but here you say that yours have lasted for almost a year?? So make up your mind did your die out within a few months and did you have to learn the hard way, or where you being over exagerant? And who is metal max, ??

 

Does anyone know if it's possible to remove the bulb for the airbag light? My airbag light is on and the trick from the forums doesn't seem to work for me.

 

just wondering what mcds and size leds did you go with for the guages? i used 3mm 5000mcd and they are not bright enough. im looking on redoing mine. and did you power your leds for the gauges from the dimmer switch?

 

both actually, different times. Ive modded mine 3 times, and ive done a few other members for them.

If you havent heard of metal max, you must be new around here..

check out his car's finished thread:

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread.php?t=484753

unfortunately, the pictures arent up anymore, anyone thats been around and saw his progress can tell you he had the most decked out interior on this forum.

 

I thought those were green leds? Guess not.


You shouldn't fight with this. Mendon and Metal Max know what they are talking about. If you don't know who Metal Max is you probably missed out on a lot of information on LED install. Yours are probably in good shape but I agree with Mendon, I've seen a lot of threads with people having to redo LED's because they died out before they are supposed to. Remember, just because a vendor tells you they will last 100,000 hours doesn't mean they all will.

 

thank you Cdg, you've obviously been around the block for a while.

they will last a very long time, if properly connected.

 

looks great man. Always have a big respect for people who take the time to do this stuff.

 

thanks for the compliments everyone

for the gauges i used 25000mcd because ya, the 5000mcds werent bright enough. They were 5mm, you cant get that mcd in a 3mm but for the gauges there is plenty of room to work with.

 

mendon about the diodes... im not really that experienced in electronics but i searched ebay for diodes and im not really finding anything that looks like something i would want to use. do i want to use something like this? ? also im not arguing cause im sure you and metal maxima (yes i have heard of him before) are right but the leds in my climate control have been in there for almost a year and they are still strong. just my own experience so far.

 

Definitely adding this to my to-do list for the summer. Great work.

 

i wanna do that LED needle mod, but i hear on 95-97 its harder to do

 

awesome, looks very good

 

yeah i want to redo mine now. how did you get the leds to sit on the corners where the gauges mount..there are four for the two large guages and two for the small gauges correct? just want to get on the same page..did you silicone them in place? or is that electrical tape? also where did you power them up from? and as for the guages in the needles i had to use 3mm 5 mm would have been to big for the tight space under the gauges.

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/1N4007-Diodes-1-...QQcmdZViewItem

^ these will be fine. if you solder them on to the positive side of the LED, the silver line on the diode must be closest to where you soldered, or vice versa if you put them on the neg...

confused yet?

PM me when you get to ready to do this and ill draw you a diagram.

 

/thread.