Oh, hey Cringe, sorry, didn't see your post.. but the door handle isn't carbon fiber, it's basically perforated leather

And KayJai... Will any LED work? Could I just swing by Radio Shack and pick up an LED of the right size and solder it in there? Also.. how do I get the buttons off to do this? Thanks man... I'm glad everyone likes the door lights! smile.gif If anyone wants, lemme know and I'll possibly make ya some... I made myself a template to make more. wink.gif

 

Hey Dude,... yeah pretty much any LED will work.
But make sure you get super bright LEDs, or they will look crappy.
The specs on the ones I got were:
3.6V Forward Voltage
20mA (I think)
and the most important spec, it's 2000 MCD (MicroCandle) This is how bright it is @ full voltage, and believe me, 2000 is plenty,... considering the normal LED has like 300-500mcd's. The ones I got were made by MODE Electronics, but I'm sure any name brand would be fine. Just as long as it's around 2000mcd's.
And yeah to do this you will have to take the door panel apart, it's pretty easy, lemme know if you need to know how,...
Anyway once door panel is off there are clips holding in that button module, it just pops off (goes up)(kinda if the door panel is still on and you have the door closed, when you pop it off it comes out and not into the door,... I think that made sense,.. smile.gif )
Anyway once you pop that unit out, you will have to pop off the cover (has the writting on it) Once that is off, you will see this:

On the upper right pic, you will see like a slider bar that holds the 2 buttons there, keep the buttons pushed down and take that bar out, remember to keep the buttons pushed, they are spring loaded and if you let go when the bar is slid out, the buttons go flying (Trust me, from experience )
Once you take the buttons off, you will see the circuit board containing the LEDs, there will be 2 solder joints that hold the board onto the module (kinda cheap looking, if you ask me, but it serves the purpose)
Anyway take that circuit board off, turn it up side down, and de-solder the 2 LEDs off. Then solder your new LEDs on and just reverse the procedure to put it back in.

NOTE: Make sure you get the polarity right on the LEDs before you solder them in, or else you'll have to desolder them and flip them, then solder it back on, whenthey don't turn on. An easy way to make sure, is Just take a look at the crappy green ones first, on the LEDs there is a bigger "chunk" of metal on one side of the LED than the other. Just make sure when you put the new ones in that the "chunk" is on the same side.

Oh Raithan,... can you send me a paper template of the door lights? Maybe scan it and them email it? Or is a hard plastic piece? Thanks

 

My template is actually a hard wood piece.. how I did it was clamp the plastic that I was making the thing out of to the wood pice (in a bench clamp) then I took the dremel and sanded the edges down to match the wood piece. Basically how I did it is take off the red light cover, place it on a small piece of wood, take a pen (NOT A MARKER or you will write on the red plastic which you want to keep incase something ever goes wrong) and outline it onto the one, then cut it out w/ a scroll saw. Also, side note.. when/if you paint the new piece of plastic, make sure you paint the INSIDE.. do not paint the part that you can touch when it's installed or you might scratch it and it will look like crap.

 

KayJai - Hey man, you said you picked up some 3.6 volt 5 mm LEDs right? Damnit.. I wish I woulda known that.. I swung by radio shack and grabbed them and took them up to the counter and the guy goes "Now.. you want the 3.6 volt right? Because that is an odd voltage for LED's" and I said "Well, it's for my car, it should work" and he goes "No.. no way, you put these in they'll blow right out, you need a 12 volt and we don't carry a 12 volt, and there isn't one in our special order catalog either. The only thing I can tell you is look online." so I didn't get them.. but now that I know they will work.. I'll go back and nab em.

 

Yeah,...
The 12 volt ones won't even light up!
The guy's on drugs, must be thinking you're hooking it up right to V++ (Battery) but there is an resistor on the board, so it's all good. I think when we measured it with a multimeter it was only like 1.91 Volts or something like that at the 2 solder joints that hold the circuit board to the module.
We actually tested it out first, we took the circuit board, install the LEDs and hooked it up to a car battery, left it overnight and it didn't burn out the next day,... wasn't even warm, so then we were pretty confident that it would be ok for the cars

BTW, there is a group buy on LEDs on the board, if you're interested!
smile.gif

[ November 28, 2001: Message edited by: KayJai ]

 

I did this mod last weekend (the window buttons) and it is badass! I used blue LED's..2600mcd, 3.6v. I checked out the stock resistor on the board and I think it was like 2100 ohms, so the little stock LED's don't blow out.

I swapped out that resistor for 510 ohms after doing some electrical math so that the blue LED's are brighter (they're not distractingly bright but you can see them on a cloudy day). email if you have questions.

Whole project: 3 LED's @ $3.99 each, 2 resistors @ $.50 each. Not bad at all. wink.gif

BTW, get in on MySilverTiburon's LED Group buy! Good deal!
LED Group Buy

[ November 29, 2001: Message edited by: :: skilspeed :: ]

 

Hey, one thing I was just thinking is does this only work for the power window switches? Or can you switch the LEDs in the passenger side switches and in the power mirror switch and in the passenger window lock switch? smile.gif

 

Yup you can do it on the passenger side door window switch too,... did that also
See:
And no you can't do it on the Window Lock button, it's WAAAAAY down there. We had a spare one kicking around so we took it apart, and there was no way to do it, unless you broke it off,.. cuz the LED is inside a plastic cylinder. And it only comes on when you use the window lock button, so how often is that right? smile.gif
And there are no lights in the mirrow adjusts


[ November 29, 2001: Message edited by: KayJai ]

 

Cool, thanks Kay... also I think I read somewhere that you can't do the dash buttons because the led's are actually inside the buttons.. this true or do you not know? Would be cool to have the little light for the fog switches/cruise control/rear defroster to be blue instead of green too smile.gif

 

THe only ones that Zorro was able to change were the Air Circ and AC LED lights, not the buttons themselves, she said she also had problems with changing the fogs, rear wipers,... etc...
But try it,... I didn't get a chance to,...