Hi all,
I'm pretty new to this whole mini thing but I'm outta school, got a job, and am a proud owner of an '09 JCW.
I'm looking to make some changes to give the car a few accents to match the custom mountain bike that will be hanging out on the roof as much as possible.


I'm hoping to start with some accent lights and since the '09 mood lights don't go green I was hoping to see how difficult it would be to swap them out.
I heard on other forums that these are simply bicolor led's that are controlled by the toggle to give us a range of lights. Could I simply go in and replace them with something like this and use the existing toggle to tune the perfect match of green?
http://www.unique-leds.com/index.php?target=products&product_id=1974

Also, is it ok to splice in a couple extra for footwells, speaker grills, puddle lights, etc.? I don't want to overload the circuit but I would like them all to run through the current mood light toggle.

I'm planning on doing the speedo and tach lights next to get rid of that orange but let's take things one step at a time.

Thanks for your help, I wanted to reach out and see if anyone had run into this before I go buying led's and tearing apart the inside of the car.
I hope to follow up with the

 

Okay first of you very well may be able to change the LED but the shape of them is custom to fit the areas that they are located in so that will be the problem. many of them have extended housings made of clear plastic built in and as such will not really allow you to change them easily. And these are on three wire system if I remember correctly.

Also these all work off of the Foot Well Module and as such are computer controlled so the switch is a micro switch controlling the computer circuit in the foot well module for the mood lighting. It is a very low power circuit so adding to it will be a problem.

As for changing the color of the LEDs for the speedo and tach is a rather difficult process and very very time consuming. Just an FYI many have tried and failed. but one or two have actually gotten it to work.

Good Luck with your project.

Edit: on the 2011+ the range of colors is more than the 5 we have on the 2007-2010 models.

 

Ok, I went ahead and tore apart my interior to check out these mood lights and it seems like some industrial designer at mini had some fun with them. There's good news and bad news about that.

lucky enough, the armrest and seatbelt column lights are exactly the same and just utilize different light tubes to direct the light. (I didn't get into the door handles but I would bet they are also the same kind.) Schatzy, you're right about them being driven by three wires but all of the LED's I came across are the board mount kind like on the speedo and tach. they use two separate LED's rather than a single bulb like the one shown above. This should give me some nice practice with soldering.
The lights in the console with the map lights are on the same circuit board as the map lights and toggle switches.

I'm going to go ahead and order a bunch of surface mount LED's and see what I can do. Soldering the side lights will be difficult because the existing lights are attached to a plastic ribbon. This might be a part I will want to replace all together or get extras of for practice. Is my dealer the one to talk to about getting a couple extra OEM ribbon mood lights?

Sorry no pix, next time I take something apart I'll try to remember to snap a couple to share with the world.

Thanks for your help! Let me know if you have any other suggestions

 

Be sure to post pics if you get anything, Toxic! I'm also very interested in modding the interior lights of my 07 MCS - particularly my dash. It's about to turn 5 y/o and I think it's about time my MINI left its stock state. (BTW I'm also a new graduate with a job, cheers! )