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NOTE: I am not responsible for any damages caused by this mod. Do this at your own risk.
Purpose: It looks cool.
Difficulty: 5ish out of 10
Time: 2-3 hours give or take
Materials:
- 4 LED's
- 18 Gauge Red and Black Stranded Wire
- Switch (Optional)
- Electrical Tape
- Resistor
- Wire Stripping Tool
- 15 Amp Mini Fuse
- Drill
First off when you buy your LED's make sure you take into account these two things
- LED Voltage
- LED Current (mA)
These things should be listed on the package for the LED's (I got mine from Radioshack)
You will need to know those two things to calculate what resistor you need using this calculator:
Resistor Calculator
For Total LED's your going to put 4 in this case.
For LED Voltage put whatever your LED's are.
For LED Current (mA) put whatever your LED's are.
For Total Voltage put 12 because that how many our car battery is.
In my case my LED Voltage was 1.7v
my LED Current was 20mA
So the calculator said I needed a 270 ohm resistor at 0.1 watts
I bought a 330 ohm resistor at 1/2 watts because they didn't have the 270 ohm in stock.
It's okay to go a little higher than needed but do NOT go lower. But since our the watts for the resistor will be so low you can go with a 1/2 watt resistor. When you buy the resistor you'll notice it has a tolerance percent. I'm not too sure what it means, the one I bought had a 5% tolerance so if you stick with 5% I think it should be fine.
Your going to need to know how to remove the trim so you can hide all the wires and you will need to know how to pull the vents out.
Trim Removal by ragingfish
Vent Removal by ahuhn
Vent Removal by Riotcowg6
All of the above is extremely simple and you shouldn't have a problem with. No on to the hard stuff.
Okay so I don't have step by step pictures on how to do it, but I have a wiring diagram thats straight forward and a few useful pictures.
Here's a Legend for my diagram:
Wiring Diagram:
After looking at that take this into account:
This fuse box is located at the passenger side right below the radio trim.
It will basically look like this:
Fuse Box(+ Wire)>>Resistor(+ Wire)>>Fuse(+ Wire)>>4 LED's(+ and - Wire)>>Ground(- Wire)
The (+ Wire) or (- Wire) just notes what wire each step is happening with.
If you want to add a switch like I did, so you can turn it off and on it will look like this:
Fuse Box(+ Wire)>>Resistor(+ Wire)>>Fuse(+ Wire)>>Switch(+ Wire)>>4 LED's(+ and - Wire)>>Ground(- Wire)
When wiring the LED's make sure you leave enough space between each LED to reach each vent.
So Basically your running the positive wire (red) to each positive post of the LED and running that to the fuse box. And then your running the negative wire (black) to each negative post of the LED then running that to the ground next to the fuse box.
Note:
- I used electrical tape for all of my connections. Now this definitely isn't the best way to do this but it works as long as you make sure everything is secure. Also make sure NO metal or wire is bare. Cover any exposed wire or metal in electrical tape. If metal touches metal ANYWHERE you blow a fuse.
- The posts on the LED's tend to snap very easily so when attaching the wires to the post be very gentle.
When you want your vents to light up will determine which fuse you tap into. For me I wanted my lights to turn on only at night so I wired them up to the Steering Wheel Illumination fuse. If you want it to be on all the time you can wire it in with the interior lights. Look at the back of the panel that was covering the fuse box for a map of the fuses. Pull out the fuse you want to wire it in with and regardless of which fuse you choose, make sure you put the Positive Wire into the LOWER hole like pictured above. Also make sure that the wire won't touch the other post of the fuse. Then put the fuse back into place. The fuse should hold the positive wire in place.
After you have everything wired up and you installed the positive wire into the fuse box like I mentioned above, ground the negative wire coming off the LED's (and turn your headlights on if you tapped into the steering wheel illumination fuse like me) to test and see if the LED's light up. If they do then good job, if they don't then you did something wrong.
Now that you have everything wired you will have to pull out each vent. Before pulling each one out. Look at how it sits in there before you remove it and mark it on the inside with something, where you want your LED to be in the vent. This can be very tedious if you don't make a mark, but if you do drill a hole in the wrong place then you can just cover it up with electrical tape; no harm, no foul.
Heres how mine sits in one the vents.
Next once you get the vent out you will have to drill the holes for the LED's.
Now since you have your dash unassembled you can wire everything underneath it. Once thats done, put each LED in the hole you drilled. You can secure it with electrical tape like me or you can go the safer route and glue them in. Once you have the LED's in the vent's test them to make sure they all work and reassemble everything.
Purpose: It looks cool.
Difficulty: 5ish out of 10
Time: 2-3 hours give or take
Materials:
- 4 LED's
- 18 Gauge Red and Black Stranded Wire
- Switch (Optional)
- Electrical Tape
- Resistor
- Wire Stripping Tool
- 15 Amp Mini Fuse
- Drill
First off when you buy your LED's make sure you take into account these two things
- LED Voltage
- LED Current (mA)
These things should be listed on the package for the LED's (I got mine from Radioshack)
You will need to know those two things to calculate what resistor you need using this calculator:
Resistor Calculator
For Total LED's your going to put 4 in this case.
For LED Voltage put whatever your LED's are.
For LED Current (mA) put whatever your LED's are.
For Total Voltage put 12 because that how many our car battery is.
In my case my LED Voltage was 1.7v
my LED Current was 20mA
So the calculator said I needed a 270 ohm resistor at 0.1 watts
I bought a 330 ohm resistor at 1/2 watts because they didn't have the 270 ohm in stock.
It's okay to go a little higher than needed but do NOT go lower. But since our the watts for the resistor will be so low you can go with a 1/2 watt resistor. When you buy the resistor you'll notice it has a tolerance percent. I'm not too sure what it means, the one I bought had a 5% tolerance so if you stick with 5% I think it should be fine.
Your going to need to know how to remove the trim so you can hide all the wires and you will need to know how to pull the vents out.
Trim Removal by ragingfish
Vent Removal by ahuhn
Vent Removal by Riotcowg6
All of the above is extremely simple and you shouldn't have a problem with. No on to the hard stuff.
Okay so I don't have step by step pictures on how to do it, but I have a wiring diagram thats straight forward and a few useful pictures.
Here's a Legend for my diagram:
Wiring Diagram:
After looking at that take this into account:
This fuse box is located at the passenger side right below the radio trim.
It will basically look like this:
Fuse Box(+ Wire)>>Resistor(+ Wire)>>Fuse(+ Wire)>>4 LED's(+ and - Wire)>>Ground(- Wire)
The (+ Wire) or (- Wire) just notes what wire each step is happening with.
If you want to add a switch like I did, so you can turn it off and on it will look like this:
Fuse Box(+ Wire)>>Resistor(+ Wire)>>Fuse(+ Wire)>>Switch(+ Wire)>>4 LED's(+ and - Wire)>>Ground(- Wire)
When wiring the LED's make sure you leave enough space between each LED to reach each vent.
So Basically your running the positive wire (red) to each positive post of the LED and running that to the fuse box. And then your running the negative wire (black) to each negative post of the LED then running that to the ground next to the fuse box.
Note:
- I used electrical tape for all of my connections. Now this definitely isn't the best way to do this but it works as long as you make sure everything is secure. Also make sure NO metal or wire is bare. Cover any exposed wire or metal in electrical tape. If metal touches metal ANYWHERE you blow a fuse.
- The posts on the LED's tend to snap very easily so when attaching the wires to the post be very gentle.
When you want your vents to light up will determine which fuse you tap into. For me I wanted my lights to turn on only at night so I wired them up to the Steering Wheel Illumination fuse. If you want it to be on all the time you can wire it in with the interior lights. Look at the back of the panel that was covering the fuse box for a map of the fuses. Pull out the fuse you want to wire it in with and regardless of which fuse you choose, make sure you put the Positive Wire into the LOWER hole like pictured above. Also make sure that the wire won't touch the other post of the fuse. Then put the fuse back into place. The fuse should hold the positive wire in place.
After you have everything wired up and you installed the positive wire into the fuse box like I mentioned above, ground the negative wire coming off the LED's (and turn your headlights on if you tapped into the steering wheel illumination fuse like me) to test and see if the LED's light up. If they do then good job, if they don't then you did something wrong.
Now that you have everything wired you will have to pull out each vent. Before pulling each one out. Look at how it sits in there before you remove it and mark it on the inside with something, where you want your LED to be in the vent. This can be very tedious if you don't make a mark, but if you do drill a hole in the wrong place then you can just cover it up with electrical tape; no harm, no foul.
Heres how mine sits in one the vents.
Next once you get the vent out you will have to drill the holes for the LED's.
Now since you have your dash unassembled you can wire everything underneath it. Once thats done, put each LED in the hole you drilled. You can secure it with electrical tape like me or you can go the safer route and glue them in. Once you have the LED's in the vent's test them to make sure they all work and reassemble everything.
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