Hey all. I took off my side vents today (R53) and noticed there was space between the vents and the frame. I had a geek moment and wondered if anyone has backlit these before using LEDs or neon? I am just curious what it would look like. I can't decide if it would be cool. Anyone know of this being done? Have pics?

 

that is a good idea. i havent seen it yet but id like too.

 

I did mine with red led from Oznium. They look great at night, but during the day you can't really see them in the sunlight. Hard to get a good photograph of them but the LED's in the door handle and the back light of the side marker look great.



I wired them to the interior door lighting so when you lock/unlock or open the doors they fade on and then fade off when closed.

 

Could you take a pic at night without the flash? I'm interested in how much light they would cast. Wiring them to the door was genius! good idea! Is your side marker screen painted red, or is that from the LEDs?

 

great idea... can i wire it to the headlight? so it come on when i switch on my headlihht at nifght?

 

I don't know that I would wire it to the headlight, but you might wire it to your fog lights/ driving lights.

 

OK as requested.. I took one tonight although my car is dirty (snowed.. ) It is hard to photograph it lighted up. Posted one of the door handles as well. I did paint the screen red because I have a red theme going on so I took it a step further. I think I have some extra LED's and might throw a couple more behind the screen to make it a bit more pronounced.

LED Side marker
LED Door Handle

As for wiring them to the headlights.. I don't know. I would do parking lights before messing with headlights.

I used links this time since the photos were kinda large.

 

Thanks for the pics. No worries, it was good enough to get the idea. After seeing it, I don't know that the vents being backlit is my style after all. With screens like on our cars, it makes it hard to achieve the ambient effect I was hoping for. You just see the LEDs glow through....oh well.

On the other hand, the door handle lights are SICK! How did you do those? That is a project I would totally adopt.

 

I have to say if I wanted a different light effect, but I at least have it wired for making the change. Still thinking how to get the ambient effect in there. I am thinking I will reverse the LED and shoot it on a white plastic background next to see if I like it better.

Here's the thread I learned the puddle lights all from. I did mine just a bit different, but the theroy still applies.

LED Door puddle lights

Also check youtube, they have some cool vids of folks that have done it

 

Thanks for the link. If you do switch it up, please post pics

 

thxs for pics.. door handles look great... but the side vent loosk dim...

 

Looks like it is just one light in the vent. To get the right effect I would use an LED strip to bring the light across the entire vent.

Looks like a neat idea, just needs to have enough light spread out across the vent.

 

I have fiddled around with the idea a little bit. But never figured out how to remover the marker. But one of mine fell off the other day and now I know how to remove them. So I am going to try a blue cathode or led strip to see which shows better. I'm thinking if I put the light so it's facing down with an angled piece of white plastic it might give more of an ambient light effect. Itshard to avoid hotspots with LEDs maybe cathodes would be the way to go

 

I thought about cathodes, but didn't want to mess with hiding the transformer. If you get yours up, I'd love to see a photo.

If I get time this weekend, I will be messing with mine on one side to see if a molded plastic piece will work. Lots of extra LED's hanging around to test but no cathode tubes.

 

^ Ditto. Please post pics