XxGoKoUxX

I'm a DIY kind of person, and what I feel should be done cheap, I go the cheaper route!

Say.... LED boards! It was tickling my fancy for a while, scratching my head wondering why These LED boards were $15-$25 PER PIECE warded me away from purchasing a set of these, as 2-3 of them was already $45-75! (That's approximately 2-3 HID kits all in itself). So i ended up rigging my own LED board! Let me know what you think!

Please keep in mind, these cheap LEDs are VERY VERY comparable to the expensive ones people purchase through superbright LEDs, and quite possibly V-LEDs (i've heard good things about them, but i've never used them). The intensity is VERY strong off of a 12v current, and what is even more awesome about these is that they are fadable, in case you want to add in a resistor to bring down the intensity (it literally LIGHTS UP the whole front cabin off of one side).

Let's start, shall we?.... Ohh, and i forgot to mention... Sorry if the images are too big on your PC, i'm on 1920x1080 resolution on my laptop and these imagines are already tiny as it is, I tried my best with 600x800 and 800x600.



Here's the roll of LEDs purchased, it was actually a lot smaller than I thought, I thought it was going to be as big as a movie roll, but it turned out to be the size of my HAND! A total of 300 LEDs for $8 on ebay (through biddign), they're "cool white" so they're not yellowish white, but they're not blue blue white either, I'd say a color comparable to 6000k OHH, make sure you buy the water proof edition if you plan on laying LEDs anywhere that will touch water! I was going to use these for under the door, but it turns out I ordered a wrong roll. I will be ordering a new roll (waterproof) really soon!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/5M-Cool-Whit...item231e02ae68

This is water proof, $3 more, and pretty much the same LED!



This is what it looks all stretched out, it's actually pretty nifty and very convenient that every 3 LEDs, you cut, because 3 LEDs is the PERFECT length for the housing of the front ones (the rears take a little more work).

To take the housing off, you have to pry open the lens, and from there you press on the button to loosen the housing (I forgot to take a picture of this, and if it's REALLY REALLY needed I'll take another picture for you.

http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg24/...pg&res=landing

To separate the housing from the light bulb however, i pryed my bulb from the housing around this edge.

Whatever you do, DO NOT separate the 3 wires array from that bulb housing! IT WAS KILLING MY BACK AND MY HANDS trying to put that thing back together!!! Sadly, it was the most most MOST difficult part of the setup. I don't know why Lexus designed such a stupid wiring system, there's so much risk when removing it!! (Like accidentally cutting the wire clean off).



I purchased this foam-type double-sided tape by 3m, it's SOOOOOOO durable, and i've tested it on my fusa knot for about half a year now and it hasn't fallen off!

http://www.uline.com/Product/Detail/...FYqb7QodsEdvXA

I didn't order it from there, it's just for reference!

Anyway..... I took the double sided tape, and ran a whole piece to the length of the 3 LEDs in the back, and on the front, i cut it in half, and put tape between each 2 LEDs. Like so pretty much (I think you can catch onto this drift).



After I did that, the soldering began! (I am no soldering expert, so don't lecture me on my soldering skills OR what I did wrong! It's my dad's job to do the soldering hahaha, i'm still on my learning curve!)



It's pretty straight forward up above, take the two negatives, and hook them up to the negative of the middle LED strip, then take two of the positives on the left and right, and conjoin it into the middle's positive lead. EASY right?

http://img850.imageshack.us/img850/1857/91791756.jpg

This LED strip was for the rear trunk light, it was a bit of a hassle to take 3 LED strips and conjoin it onto one. So what I did here was take the 4 negatives, and at the end, soldered them together (after cutting and twisting them together), and did the same for the positives. After that I used that single connection to go to the positive of the trunk 's wiring and the negative of the trunk's wiring. not hard, just make sure + goes to + and - goes to -. (TIP: the positive end goes to the switch, the negative goes to the other end, if you're confused I can always take more detailed pictures.

Anyway, here is a mock-up of how it will look with the leds in the front (ignore that green tape, when it comes off, you can tape it to the cover housing and you won't have to worry about it looking hideous).



Here is everything wired up, It took me a while to perfect it but it works darn well!



In the back, you'll take the original bulb, tape up the leads (it's a wedge type bulb, so tape up the wedge, and take the + and -, put them in according to their leads, and push the wedge in, from there it should work, if it doesn't, you've flipped the polarity and just need to reverse it!

Here's the other side!



Here's the mock-up for the rear trunk housing



Here's how it looks at night ( REMEMBER, this is with the camera readjusting light intensity on my phone, it's MUCH MUCH brighter than it looks!!)



Here's teh trunk light mockup, I think it looks awesome!



This is a photo without lighting (at 6am, so lighting of that window's not soo intense, but it still shows).



Here's with the 3-strip LEDs on



Here's the 3-strip LEDs on. (If I took a picture of the 3-strip LEDs off, it'll be just pitch black, so there's no point to that!)



Here's the 4-strip LEDs



So there you have it! Project done. I've installed them already, so i'll take picture tomorrow of how it looks in the car.... It's pretty much a whole night and day difference, one side LITERALLY lights up the whole front cabin! The trunk is even brighter now, I can ACTUALLY see stuff in the trunk that I need!

P.S. If anyone's interested, with the mods permission, i'd love to barter my services. I'm willing to mock these up so long as I get supplies, I need supplies not money hehehe. So with mods permission, I'd love to modify these suckers for our CL members so long as I can get some supply

GS350Lexus

iTrader: (5)

Pretty awesome, I want to see how it lights up the trunk area.

XxGoKoUxX

Sure thing! Pics to come in a few hours lol... I lost my sleep

3GS404

iTrader: (12)

I lost my sleep [/QUOTE]

Haha so exciting after finish a DIY project ?

XxGoKoUxX

Haha so exciting after finish a DIY project ?[/QUOTE]

hahaha, nahh, this was finished last night i lost my sleep because i took a nap and woke up at 1

XxGoKoUxX

Photos as promised. Keep in mind it's completely 100% dark in my garage, I snapped these photos off of my SGS II, so they're not perfect, but they're there to get the picture

From one side of the cabin:


From both sides of the cabin:


The array of LEDs on the roof:


The array of LEDs in the trunk:


Here's a photo of the trunk (the whole thing):


This is the trunk from an angle (notice that it not ONLY lights up the trunk but outside of the trunk too, in case you're doing something outside and need a glare of light for a second):


This is with NO lighting (to prove that it's all the LED doing the lighting):


Interior shot of the driver side:


Interior shot of the pass side:


Both sides lit up:


Close-up where the mirror is:

bbond

why go through all that work when you can just plug and play a 194 wedge led ??

Silver10

That looks great

XxGoKoUxX

its brighter for one.... and its cheaper . Honestly, if you can't do something simple like this as a DIY, you don't deserve to modify a car .

Ty

pman6

http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/301021055917?lpid=82&chn=ps
Are these the bulbs I need for this?