Custom Trunk Light Upgrade. Pix!
 

I've noticed eveyone talking about how abysmal the dinky light in the trunk was. Then as you all know, I'm the lighting nut around this forum. Long story short...I upgraded that dinky light.

It has been in my car for the last 2 months, but I never thought of posting pix here.

Anyways, here are some pix for your reference :D

http://www.jefftsai.com/Pictures/Car...May/Trunk1.jpg

http://www.jefftsai.com/Pictures/Car...May/Trunk2.jpg

http://www.jefftsai.com/Pictures/Car...May/Trunk3.jpg

Can you post how you create the custom lights, me likey!!

Very nice. :thumbup: :D

Some pics of the actual light and what exactly you did would be nice too! :)

Materials Needed:
Pair of white CCFL lights + Inverter
3M Heavy Duty double stick mounting tape, the gray foam tape with red backing that you peel off.
Soldering Iron
Cordless drill

Ok, so basic and obvious part. Cut some mounting tape, stick on the edges of the light tube and also on the inverter. Stick it to the top of the trunk where the rear deck is.

Now pry the clear plastic lens off the dinky factory bulb and pull the bulb out. Drill a hole in the back of the housing so you can route the wire in (optional). Solder the wires from the CCFL inverter to the copper pins where that dinky bulb used to be. Make sure you check the polarity of which wire is which with a multimeter. These CCFL interters are cheap garbage units and will fry if the polarity is reversed. Granted they cost $2 a piece, so I can't complain too much :p

These lights are used for lighting up computer cases with windows so you can see all the stuff inside. These lights can usually be found at any computer store. Should run about $15-25 or so for the kit (Two 12" CCFL tubes + Inverter). I'll post some pix of the topside of the trunk later. Also, the way the upper deck is shaped...the light tubes are recessed upward into the deck so you cant see the light from behind the car. You can only see them if you pop your head in the trunk and look upwards. I like this better since it makes it look much more OEM.

I bought a ton of these lights(quantity discount) and installed them for people for $30(parts+labor). Most of my friends have these in their cars now :D

I'll post up some pix of the actual lights and the modded housing(original light) when I get the time to go out there and take some pictures again.

Ok, I went to take some pix. :D

http://www.jefftsai.com/Pictures/Car...May/Trunk4.jpg

http://www.jefftsai.com/Pictures/Car...May/Trunk5.jpg

http://www.jefftsai.com/Pictures/Car...May/Trunk6.jpg

Very nice simple mod, I like it.

Very very nice!

I guess I know what mod I will be doing this weekend! Thanks! :D

Great job and nice writeup. Looks like a huge difference

I did this a few years back, but I think the cold cathodes don't like vibration or something. Mine blew out a couple of months after. I bought another set and just changed the light, but the same thing happend. I think for reliability I would choose LEDs over CCFL

Here's a pic at HIN 2004
https://www.clublexus.com/gallery/da...04DSC00079.jpg

V8 Aristo. You have a white with black interior :eek2: Ahhh, I'm so tempted to swap out my interior to black :D

As for the cathodes, I don't have a big huge sub right now so I don't think vibration is gona kill it with the stock sub. As I said the electronics in the inverter are pretty shoddy so anything small can kill it. I'm sure your light tubes still worked, but maybe all you needed is a new inverter.

Its the inverter! ive gone through 2 pairs already with my demon eyes!

Nope, like I said, I switched lights and not the inverter. It worked again for another 2 month and then it blew out. And I lights won't both go out the same time, just one at a time.

Well I know that there is a ground wire running down the side of the tube. Mabye epoxy it to the tube so it won't flap around when the sub is hitting. Also, epoxy the two ends where the connector goes in to reduce any flex. I dunno, just a thought. I'll add the epoxy glue in before I install my big subs then I'll see how it holds up afterwards. :D

jeff very cool mod :thumbup: not alot of wiring very simple looking NICE :)

very nice mod! attention to details! :thumbup: :)

looks nice!

Thats a great DIY mod.. :thumbup:

Hey Jeff, where can i obtain these lights? hard to install?

I see the light! :D

Read up on the second post by me in this thread. All the instructions are there. As for obtaining the lights. Any computer store such as CompUSA, Frys, etc will have them.

Hameed, did you get the lights installed yet? :p

cool mod indeed!!!

Great mod I am working on mine right now.

how much did everything cost and how easy is it ??

Jeff, that is pretty sweet :thumbup: . You have way too much time on your hands :D . Hey, let me know when you are going to do your brakes. Maybe we can do help out installing each others.

so has anything blown out yet?

Nope lights still going strong. I recently wired up an aftermarket amp up to the stock sub. So the rear deck shakes like a mo' now. I still need to dynamat the rear deck and trunk.....DIY on that later on ;)

Anyways, the lights have been in my trunk for 3 months and the new amp was installed 2 weeks ago....and so far no problems. Might I remind you, Texas has some HOT summer days! ;)

Damn if you weren't all the way in Texas I would take my car to you to do this mod. Only $30, not bad.

I'm going to post up a completed DIY on my site when someone in town with a GS gets me to do this mod. It's really not that bad if you know how to solder and have a drill.

just be careful closing your trunk...I would be afraid those would shatter if I closed it too hard. Cool mod, by the way. :thumbup:

You had said to get the lights at CompUSA or something like that? Do they come with the inverter? If I wanted to do LED's would you suggest anyplace to get an LED strip?

Hey, i recently did this mod and couldnt be happier. I bought the kits at Fry's electronics in Renton Wa.....at night, when you open the trunk, its soo much nicer to have really bright white light. it really does look OEM. i've had a few people ask me question about it already. As stated before, be really careful when installing as if you reverse the polarity and connect the power up backwords, the inverter is friend instantly (HINT: do NOT assume that the red wire is always positive, this is how i blew my first inverter) i looked at some other options such as LED strips, flexible LED strips from underglow, other cold cathode tubes, but this little 14.99 kit does the trick perfectly without being "ricey."


also, i was concerned with mounting the tubes to the metal on the underside of the trunk deck, so i decided to mount them a little closer to the opening of the trunk, on the capreted plastic panels which are (if your standing by the trunk) closer to you than the torsion springs which hold the trunk open. i simply drilled 2 little holes and slid zip-ties through to hold them on.. that way they can move around (as the panels are thin and flexible) and absorbe some shock while still being mounted pretty solidly.

fyi- i just did this mod, it's quick, easy, and CHEAP! picked up my cathode light set and it looked EXACTLY like jeff's from ebay - cost was less than 7 bucks SHIPPED!

http://cgi.ebay.com/12-DUAL-WHITE-NE...QQcmdZViewItem

I didn't want to hack up my oem light housing so i popped it out, replaced it with the blue box which was wrapped with foam so it wouldn't rattle and then made some metal tabs that slipped into the oem plug for the power source.

All done!

well where's the pics ?? :thumbup:

hey V8 Aristo, what was the cost of doing neons under your car?

I just bought a kit yesterday, but I am a complete complete electrical newb. It's obvious that the cold cathodes plug into the inverter, but what do you do with the male and female plug things? And what about the on off switch, do you mount that with the inverter as well? And what would I need to soder to the trunk light output? Sorry for all the questions, but any help would be greatly appreciated.

Here's a picture, just for reference. It looks exactly like the one that I got.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y207/HenryHa/b3_1.jpg

Here is what I did...

Prepping the kit. See the red and black wires coming from the blue box? Follow those wires until you get to the switch and the rest of the wiring harness and cut them so you have a good foot or what not of wire coming from the blue box.

Remove old light housing and housing cover. You should be left with a plug that provides power. If you look inside the plug coming from the car, you'll see that it used to fit over two metal tabs in the light housing. The goal now is to make metal tabs that are similar and to fit the tabs into the plug coming from the car.

Making the Tabs. I then crimped the red and black wires to 2 connectors similar to this one http://www.cliffud.com/cl/connector.jpg and then folded "U" in half to stick into the plug coming from the car. It now looks like this: http://www.cliffud.com/cl/connector2.jpg

Plugging in the light. As the title says, plug in the red and black wires to the plug coming from the car. If you get the +/- mixed up, don't worry, you just won't see any light coming from your cathodes. If you get it right - then light aplenty.

Hiding the blue box Now you have to be like Rush Limbaugh and hide the little blue box for your little blue pills. :) What I did was wrap the blue box with some foam strips and wrap it with electrical tape to ensure it didn't rattle around. After ensuring it wouldn't rattle around, I stuffed it into the hole where the light housing used to be and made sure it didn't fall out. Yeah, this may look totally ghetto and may not be the BEST way to wire this up but I didn't want to hack up my original light housing to make it look "nice". After all - it's the underside of the rear deck we're talking about here.

Securing the cathodes. In Arizona, it's hot. REAL HOT. With the temps hitting 120 degrees easily in a trunk, there was no way my double sided tape was going to hold up in the heat. So I used tar-based sound dampening material to "tape" the tips of the cathodes to the underside of the rear deck. Again, not the best looking way to set it up if you only have 4 strips of this stuff holding up your lights but when your whole trunk is covered with this stuff - it quickly looks like a space shuttle compartment and it doesn't look that bad.

so the switch and the the other two connectors are useless and i can throw them away?

yes.

or - you can incorporate them and make your install look A LOT MORE COMPLICATED AND IMPRESSIVE TO YOUR GIRLFRIEND.

jk :)

so guys your just getting power from the stock light correct ?? so when the trunk is opened the light come on like stock ?? also how do you guys think blue would look ?? i gotta do this mod

yep- power comes from stock light.

and trunk opens = light on. trunk closed = light off.