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Dreamcarowner mentioned putting an led light in these vents is nice for dim cabin light. where do you get your power from.....run a wire down the A pillar and splice into what?
dome light vents
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Uuhm.... i'm sorry? what exactly is a dome light vent? Are you talking about the little round vent looking thing on a 453 right by the dome lights? Pretty sure that's where the hands-free microphone is located...
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on a 451 the is a vent on eithe side of the dome light to keep heat from building up
Dreamcarowner installed an led in each for dim ambient cabin light and I was wondering how he ran the wire and where he spliced in for power
Dreamcarowner installed an led in each for dim ambient cabin light and I was wondering how he ran the wire and where he spliced in for power
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Not sure where to tap into for those LEDs. My 2013 does have a small LED "flood light" right behind the dome light. But then again, I have the factory ambient lighting installed in mine (door pockets, dash cubbyhole, glove box and footwell) which is tied into the dome light. If I have it set to "door" I get a soft glow, but if I turn on the dome light I get a brighter glow in the footwell.
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I ran the wire down the A-pillar and under the dash you will see a big rubber boot that goes through the firewall. I ran the wire through the edge of the boot. Then I connected the wire to the parking light wires which is behind the headlight assembly. The bulb for the parking light is on a long tube in order for the bulb to be in place. You just twist the tube and it comes out. I just happen to have my headliner down, so later tonight I will post some pics of what I did with the LED lights over those vents. DCO.
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Hi TRobinson6. Here is the LED's I put over my vents in the headliner.
I bought two T10 LED's and soldered wires to both and connected them in parallel and then used hot glue to glue them in place over the vent holes.
Now over top of my headliner looks like a wiring mess, but I have other things I have done to add light to the interior. I basically cloned the Ambient light package and I have another LED that I put down through the headliner and put the body of a old style license plate light over the LED to diffuse the light so there isn't a glare on the windshield at night, and the 2 blue LED's in the vents makes a nice contrast of light inside the car. Now the other thing in front of the diffused license plate is an old bicycle taillight that I put a small motion sensor in for the car alarm I am working on too.
So you won't have that mess of wires to deal with. I run the wire acrossed the headliner and down the A-pillar. Then if you look closely there is a space there at the edge of the dash and the door jamb that you can feed your wire through to get it under the dash.
Now leave the wire under the dash for a moment and let's look at the other end of where your connection will be made. This is your parking light in the headlamp assembly. If you reach around the back of the headlamp assembly to the outer edge you will feel a long tube with 2 wires coming out of it. Grab hold of it and turn it. It will only turn one way about a quarter turn. Then pull it out and you can splice into those two wires and be sure you get the polarity right. If the LED doesn't light, reverse your wires as LEDS only work with one polarity. After you splice in your wires and get ready to put the parking light back in, turn on your parking lights and look in the hole the light goes in and you will be able to see the light and get the parking light bulb back in the hole and then turn it a quarter of a turn and you are set.
Now you are looking at the coolant reservior.
Now let's zero in behind that reservior and you will see a large rubber grommet. You can use a screwdriver to pry down the edge of that grommet and run your wires through to the inside of the car.
Now kneeling beside the car on the driver side and looking under the dash you will see that rubber grommet that you ran the wire inside with.
Now just connect your wires and use plastic wire ties to hold them up out of the way. Keep your wires away from the steering column because it turns and a rubbing wire could end up shorting out if it was against it and the insulation wore through. Use can use light gauge speaker wire as small as 22AWG because the 2 leds draw very little milliamps each.I discovered that I had a white wire that dropped down and was rubbing the steering column, so since this picture I have fixed that rubbing wire.
I hope this helps and I hope it is the first of many projects you do on your Fortwo. I always have Max torn up somewhere for some new project.
I have 9 LED's in my dome light and I used 5mm LED's on the other parts of my dome light circuit. Along with the dome light I have 2 LEDs in each footwell, one under each door, one under both side mirrors, 2 on each side in the cargo area, 1 on the ignition switch, 2 on each axle cap under the car pointing to the rear, 2 on each side of the front bumper so that it lights up clear around the car.
Now when the dome light isn't on and I am driving down the road with the parking lights or headlights on there is 1 LED in each footwell, 1 in each door pocket, one in the glove box, one on each side of the cargo area, 2 green ones on each side of the grille to match my green halo DRL's, and 4 Red LED's on each side of the car under the door on the rocker panels, 1 LED in each vent that I cut in the rocker panels and one white LED in the middle of the rocker panel. Now for my last LED project I'm going to put an LED's in both seat belt buckles. Those rascals are hard to see and find when you get in the car with a coat on. DCO
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Yes JZ it is on the coolant return line, but it is setting on a thick piece of aluminum to shield it some. I did a post on those resistors when I put them on. They are for the LED bulbs in the turn signal to keep them from hyperflashing. I checked the temperature of the resistors in operation and within minutes they heated close to 200 degrees F. It's unbelievable but true. If they were mounted on any of the Fortwos plastic it probably wouldn't melt through but it probably would warp plastic. I just didn't have any room left behind the headlight assembly to mount it to metal. I also have the ballast for the HID headlights and the module that keeps them from flickering and setting of a code in the SAM. Also getting a drill in there would have been next to impossible unless I would have taken the front clip off.
Here's the post on the hyperflashing. JZ and me got our thought processes worn out in this one. And I remember that I wired the resistor in series and they stilll hyperflashed and when I did it parallel acrossed the hot wire AND the ground they flashed properly, but got hot. Normal use for turn signals they did well, but if you use your 4 ways for a few minutes the resistor get very hot.
http://www.smartcarofamerica.com/forums/f4/hyperflashing-119938/
I didn't mean to hijack my own thread. DCO
Here's the post on the hyperflashing. JZ and me got our thought processes worn out in this one. And I remember that I wired the resistor in series and they stilll hyperflashed and when I did it parallel acrossed the hot wire AND the ground they flashed properly, but got hot. Normal use for turn signals they did well, but if you use your 4 ways for a few minutes the resistor get very hot.
http://www.smartcarofamerica.com/forums/f4/hyperflashing-119938/
I didn't mean to hijack my own thread. DCO
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led lighting
OMG you are a walking detail oriented led making project oriented rolling christmas tree. my hat is off to you for the many hours to improve your "baby". i can see where you get your enjoyment and love to make a mouse trap better as my wife would say. hope yours doesn't object too much....mine does when i love to tinker
thank you again for the pics, advice and ideas
OMG you are a walking detail oriented led making project oriented rolling christmas tree. my hat is off to you for the many hours to improve your "baby". i can see where you get your enjoyment and love to make a mouse trap better as my wife would say. hope yours doesn't object too much....mine does when i love to tinker
thank you again for the pics, advice and ideas
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Could you post a pic of the ambient lighting? always wondered how it looked
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I'll try to get a good picture. May have to wait till tonight.
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Kind of hard to take pics of it in the dim stages, but here is the best I was able to snag.
Full brightness (door open)
Passanger footwell light dim then bright.
Driver footwell dim and bright.
Left dash cubby and right dash cubby.
And the door pockets and lights.
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I'd never abuse the red bull like that. It was consumed mere seconds after the photo was taken. Lol.
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Thanks so much for the photos!
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is the panel that the vents/blue lights are in come off by itself or is it all part of the upper trim across the windshield?
i bought two light blue leds to install up there.
my honda civic has one blue led as standard on the 06 ex models and i have always liked that little extra light in the cabin but not obtrusive.
thanks for your help and all the tech info (don't think i will put that many lights in. do you label all your wiring so you or the next person will know what they are for? i learned to do that on my motorcycles so i didn't have to retrace at a later date)
i bought two light blue leds to install up there.
my honda civic has one blue led as standard on the 06 ex models and i have always liked that little extra light in the cabin but not obtrusive.
thanks for your help and all the tech info (don't think i will put that many lights in. do you label all your wiring so you or the next person will know what they are for? i learned to do that on my motorcycles so i didn't have to retrace at a later date)
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Drquestioneamcarowner.....quick question. the panel that has the vents where your two blue leds are mounted. does just that panel come down or do you have ro pull the windshield mldg across the car for access to the vents
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Hello TRobinson6. Sorry for taking so long to reply, but for some reason my yahoo mail sent the pointer e-mails to my spam box and I rarely check that. The overhead panel comes down independent of the A-pillar covers on the sides. If you open your sun visors you will see 2 very short screws in the middle of the driver side and also the same identical screws in the passenger side. Then there are 2 screws in each sun visor mount and one screw on the other end of each visor mount. The overhead panel also has a kind of a "catch" built in where it meets the A-pillar. So after you remove all 10 screws you will still have to kind of unsnap the overhead assembly where it meets the A-pillar. There will be wires to your dome light and also to the passenger side air bag light.Hope this helps. DCO
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