Light that boot! (LED trunk light MOD)
 

OK, so I got fed up with the horrible, dim light in the boot of my cabrio, so when a friend of mine sent me a prototype of a 5MM LED strip, instead of putting it in the engine bay, decided to attach it to the underside of the boot cover shining down. I wired these into the existing boot lamp wiring... As you can see, it's MUCH brighter in there now, and I don't lose all my light when I put a bag of groceries back there any more...

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l2..._november5.jpg

Like I said before, these are a prototype (to be sold soon I hope), but you could do this exact same MOD with Oznium's LED "Flex Strip":

http://www.oznium.com/led-flex-strips

Great idea! I've been thinking about a change to the ineffective boot light. Any chance he is going to produce them in orange?

He might... Or you can try two sets, one red, one yellow of the existing Flex Strips:

http://www.oznium.com/led-flex-strips

It's a bit pricey to do that, though, but MAN would it be bright! :)

That's freakin awesome. I'm doin it as soon as I can get the "right" LED set... just ordered some blue flex strips to try...

Excellent mod

pretty cool..are those strips, or similar, sold at local places such as autozone or strictly mail order?

Love it:thumbsup: What a fantastic idea...:nod:

Donna:cool: :grin: :cool:

Neat! Thanks for telling us about these.

Niiiiiiiiiiiice - I was just thinking last night as I unloaded stuff from the boot "Man, there's not a lot of light in there..." LOL
- Looks great!

I would love to do this. How difficult is the wiring?

Wiring is dead simple... I just popped out the OEM light, snipped off the wires about 3" from the existing bulb, tested the positive lead and used the existing wiring - that way everything functions exactly the same as it does with the stock light.

One thing I did notice though - when the car is actually running and the boot is closed, the LEDs flicker a slight ammount. Since I have a cabrio I can't notice the flicker (I ran the strip for over two weeks before I happened to be out of the car while it was running and noticed a dim flickering leaking past the boot sheild), but those with hatch backs might see it more. I can swear I saw someplace that you can get something that you can add to the circuit to stop the flicker with LEDs, but I can't for the life of me find the thread now.

As for the LED strips- - I've never seen them at Autozone or anyplace else - just at Oznium, but that doesn't mean that they're not available anyplace else. I like Oznium because they don't charge much in shipping and never question a return. He's a GREAT online merchant.

Hey ImagoX, where did you mount all the switches for your LEDs?

None of my interior LEDS are switched - because they draw so little power (much less than the OEM white bulbs), I just wired them directly into the existing floor well, door and trunk light wiring. The only things that are switched are the LEDs I have in the engine bay - those aew hooked to a switch in the cabin. I'm in the process of building a switch box for my switches and should hopefully have it done in a few weeks - holidays always disrupt all my projects y'know... :)

Sweet :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

I'm the same way. All of mine are wired into the existing electronics, except for the ones under my dash. Right now, the switch is just hanging, but I haven't really thought of a place to mount it, plus I will be adding more lights that will need an on/off switch. Can you keep us posted on your switch panel. I need some ideas. Thanks !!! :thumbsup:

This is what I hope to end up with:

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l2...ox_diagram.jpg

Wonder where you would place this in a hardtop that would be out of the way and still give the best light spread?

Nice work. I have neon and fiber optic, and doesn't light like that. :thumbsup:

ImagoX,

at your suggestion on the PM you sent to me, I ordered two of the white LED strips from Oznuim. They came yesterday... very nice lights. I plan on installing them today under the removable package shelf of the boot of my coupe.

There is a nice rectangular support beam that runs all the way across that shelf on the bottom and will make a nice place to hide the lights. I plan to run the wires over to a place near the stock boot light and install a mini plug connector, so I can unplug it easily if I remove the shelf completely. I just held them in place last night just to see the lighting pattern... very nice, and also indirect.

Thanks again for suggesting that I contact Oznium... they really treated my nice on the phone and shipped it to me very quickly (and inexpensively). Obviously, they are not trying to get rich on inflated shipping charges.

I'll do a pic and post it to show what the white lights look like. For the boot, I wanted light to see by and not a special effect. But your blue lights really look nice.

YD

good idea. I think it would look good in the engine bay too.

Oznium is a nice online site - their minimal shipping charges are indeed very nice and every interaction I've ever had with the site owners has been 100% professional. Let us know how the lights turn out - can't wait to see them in your car. :thumbsup:

You mean like this?

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l2..._november8.jpg

Nice design !!!

Connected my (Oznium/Imagox) LED strips in my boot tonight. I have adjusted the picture brightness and color to as close to reality as I can. This is very close to what it actually looks like at night.

YD

Very, very nice! :)

imagox- you're not going to make that box out of PAPER, right? :lol: :wink: