DIY: LED Dome Light, **WARNING, not for 56k or pussies**
#1
DIY: LED Dome Light, **WARNING, not for 56k**
Welcome to my yet another very detailed LED DIY! I thank you for even opening this
thread. It just means you have a interest in some sort of LED DIY's that I like to do
every once in a while. so thank you thank you.
*****WARNING******
This DIY is not intended for.....
1. Who just buys premade LED replacement bulbs and think that it's a "LED DIY" they just did.
2. Wimps who doesn't like to spend hours making a work of perfection.
******************
With that out of the way, I do like to use full size pictures, as I hate seeing threads
of "how to/DIY"s and see small small fuzzy pictures. so please don't *****/whine about
the size of the pictures.
This DIY will work on..
S13, S14, 200SX, Altima, Maxima, and Sentra that are made in 90's. or if your dome
light looks like what I am working with, it'll also work as well. It will also work
with other models and makes if you can figure out what is +/-.
Material needed..this picture is old, but it has every tools that I use for all my LED
works. Don't mind the gauge cluster, and yes, I did a LED DIY on that too.
Alright..let's start this!
side by side comparison of my first domelight and stock dome light. gray one is from a
S14 and the black one is from S13. yes..they are same.
So..those metals with black "X" on them..rip them out. just simply not needed. I used a
flat head screw driver to remove the rivets.
and it should look like this after you are done.
Alright, here is the "KEY" picture of this whole DIY. I obviously marked the + and -
wires. and also, if you know how a switch works, it should be straight forward. I spent
hours and hours trying to figure out which was + and -, because well, if you look at
where the + and - wires are connected..it just doesn't make any sense, and also..at the
time, I didn't have a VOM tester, so I had no idea what was what...but I did all the
headach work for you all, so read on!
Alright, no picture of my showing you what size PCB you should cut it to, because it is
entirly up to you, and I didn't want to do my old design again, so I went with what you
see here. all you have to do is make a slight knife slits on the PCB, and simply take a
plier and clip/chip it off. and if you want to get ****, take a file/knife and run
along the edges of the clipped/chipped surface and smooth it out.
test fitting the LED bulbs.. as the diffused dome light cover is slightly curved out, i
had more room to work with to flush it out close to the cover itself.
thread. It just means you have a interest in some sort of LED DIY's that I like to do
every once in a while. so thank you thank you.
*****WARNING******
This DIY is not intended for.....
1. Who just buys premade LED replacement bulbs and think that it's a "LED DIY" they just did.
2. Wimps who doesn't like to spend hours making a work of perfection.
******************
With that out of the way, I do like to use full size pictures, as I hate seeing threads
of "how to/DIY"s and see small small fuzzy pictures. so please don't *****/whine about
the size of the pictures.
This DIY will work on..
S13, S14, 200SX, Altima, Maxima, and Sentra that are made in 90's. or if your dome
light looks like what I am working with, it'll also work as well. It will also work
with other models and makes if you can figure out what is +/-.
Material needed..this picture is old, but it has every tools that I use for all my LED
works. Don't mind the gauge cluster, and yes, I did a LED DIY on that too.
Alright..let's start this!
side by side comparison of my first domelight and stock dome light. gray one is from a
S14 and the black one is from S13. yes..they are same.
So..those metals with black "X" on them..rip them out. just simply not needed. I used a
flat head screw driver to remove the rivets.
and it should look like this after you are done.
Alright, here is the "KEY" picture of this whole DIY. I obviously marked the + and -
wires. and also, if you know how a switch works, it should be straight forward. I spent
hours and hours trying to figure out which was + and -, because well, if you look at
where the + and - wires are connected..it just doesn't make any sense, and also..at the
time, I didn't have a VOM tester, so I had no idea what was what...but I did all the
headach work for you all, so read on!
Alright, no picture of my showing you what size PCB you should cut it to, because it is
entirly up to you, and I didn't want to do my old design again, so I went with what you
see here. all you have to do is make a slight knife slits on the PCB, and simply take a
plier and clip/chip it off. and if you want to get ****, take a file/knife and run
along the edges of the clipped/chipped surface and smooth it out.
test fitting the LED bulbs.. as the diffused dome light cover is slightly curved out, i
had more room to work with to flush it out close to the cover itself.
Last edited by mad-ass; 01-14-2008 at 04:20 PM.
#2
This step is optional step you can do, but since I like to make everything SUPER
perfect, I even painted the PCB with just regular rattle can spray paint. that's just
one layer of paint. and see what a difference it made? That's right, you can't even see
the painted PCB and you can clearly see the normal brown PCB.
I want to warn you that you might want to masking tape up the PCB's back side..or it
might turn out like mine. you'll see this "dirty imperfection" down along the page.
Once the paint is dried out, take a paper clip and punch through each hole to open up
the holes that may be clogged with paint.
#3
So, here are some shapes and patturns you can make with 12 5mm LED's. of course you can
use more or less LED's then what you see, but I was trying to decide what I wanted to
do...
I went with "N" shape, because that's what the owner wanted(LuVz2sLiDe). you can't see
what I did much, becase my wants of perfection, i even sharpied the resistors I used to
black, and I even used black wire skin for my + wire for more stealthness.
So..here is the imperfection paint job, but I didn't need to use the copper seat's, so
it didn't bother me much. This is another major "KEY" to this whole DIY. connecting all
the resistors and LED's together. and since showing you a picture of how LED and
resistor should be connected is much better then reading all this jibberish I am
typing..here is the picture of how all this should be lined up.
it's all entirly up to you how to line up all the LED's and power them. you can either
do it series like I did, or you can use the parallel method as well. here is a picture
of that.
Here are some links that you can look/read over if you want to learn more about LED's.
http://www.theledlight.com/ledcircuits.html
http://led.linear1.org/1led.wiz
http://ledcalc.com/
Here is a list of what resistor and LED's I've used.
4 of 100 Ohm resistor [you can pick up a 5pack of these resistors at radio shack for a
$0.99+tax]
12 of 5mm T1-3/4 20 Degree water/crystal clear 14,000 mcd White LED, or more commly
called 5mm Hyperwhite LED. [you can buy this online, my source of resistors and LED's
is www.besthongkong.com]
Sadly, that is all the pictures I have, and you all probably want to see the finished
picture in car and what not..and yeah..this is where I failed..I don't have one yet.
but oh yes..they are bright! so I'll have a picture of that up soon.
I would like to thank you for reading though my long *** very detailed DIY once again.
If you have any questions, reply directly into this thread, or shoot me a PM/AIM/MSN/e-mail.
Happy DIY
mad-*** AKA Lee
#5
i posted this on 4 other sites, and never have gotten that response before, so i assumed it was cool with everyone. and my only intent was to carry a bit of humor in this long boring DIY. if you'd like, you can edit/**** out the words. I don't mind.
btw, thanks for serving the country, i am in travis afb. 1A2
Last edited by Biggamehit; 01-14-2008 at 04:37 PM.
#6
na its cool bro. just trying to up keep the guidelines up...by adding the word.. it will bring the site up in **** search engines lol...
yea bro i cant wait to get home... im in iraq right now running up and down the highways
also man the diagrams are cool as hell and the supporting info is Good and important.. many people dont realize the importants of inline resistors with those type LED's... about 9 years ago or so.. i remember playing with some led's in electronics/computer repair class. I hooked a 9v up to it and BOOm.. almost took my eye out
yea bro i cant wait to get home... im in iraq right now running up and down the highways
also man the diagrams are cool as hell and the supporting info is Good and important.. many people dont realize the importants of inline resistors with those type LED's... about 9 years ago or so.. i remember playing with some led's in electronics/computer repair class. I hooked a 9v up to it and BOOm.. almost took my eye out
Last edited by Biggamehit; 01-14-2008 at 04:49 PM.
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