TweetDIY LED Interior Accent Lights FULL instructions...pics included!
Hey folks...now that I've had my Forte EX for a exactly one year now..(my baby's growing up! *sniff*), I figured I give it a little more oomph. So, I decided to install interior lights
Now, before I start with the full story/pics and tips, a HUGE thanks goes out to my brother, Johnny. (He's big into customizing rides himself, and if any of y'all have Tacoma's out there...check out his stuff... Tacoma World Forums - View Profile: stunt man hans) Since my 21 y/o girly self was afraid to blow something up, he was there to help with wiring stuff...although it really wasn't that hard....
As I was doing my researching on the forum and googled till no end, I was kind of on my own for the hook-up I wanted to do. So, I figured to extend my newly-founded knowledge to all of you who want to have fun with this, and not get lost.
So here we go...
I purchased the LED Glow 6pc Flexible LED Million Color Interior Kit
After looking through the instructions, and poking around the interior to find where to mount the box and whether to hard-wire it or connect it straight to the battery, we decided to just go to the dash fuse panel and use an "add-a-fuse."
****Make sure that you take a sample size fuse with you to match the size, we made the mistake of getting a bigger connector and had to go back and get this one....whoops. ****
Now, finding areas for the strips is the fun part.
For the back seat footwells, you don't really need to use the adhesive, just bend the strip a little and fit it into the frame...just make sure you leave enough slack for the wire if you need to move the seat back.
Left side
Right side
For the front footwells, it's a tad tricky. Underneath the glove box, there's a metal bar that you can adhere the strip and be done with that.
The last strip, for the driver's side footwell, that's the trickiest one. Since there's no bar the adhesive can stick to in the steering column, I had to make a zip-tie connection from the strip to a part of the steering column.
Now, for the wires, hiding them is easy. You can easily thread the wire past the seat and then up to the front, and then tuck the wire underneath the panel. You don't have to remove the whole panel, just gently lift up with a screwdriver and tuck it right under.
To get the wires from the passenger's side over to the driver's, you need to get all the way under the dash and back towards the firewall. There's a little space that you can thread the wires through to the other side.
Once all the wires are on the driver's side, the control box is zip-tied up where the wires were threaded through. Obviously, connect the strips to the box first, then put the box in. Tie up the slack from the wires, and tuck them away.
Now take the power wires from the box and tie them against the firewall. For the black wire, make sure you ground this first...there's a bolt underneath the frame near the fuse panel...we found that the easiest to use. We used a connector instead of just wrapping the wire around the bolt. For the red wire, just put the wire through the underneath of the fuse panel and you'll get this:
****Here's where the "add-a-fuse" comes in, and all you'll have to do is strip the red wire and crimp it with the "add-a-fuse". Simple as that.****
For the final part, find out what fuse you want to use. We put it in with the parking lights so the LEDs would come on with them in the dark, and you wouldn't have to worry about turning them on and off all the time. As I did my researching, some people used the hazard lights fuse and it worked pretty well...but I didn't try it, so either way, be careful whatever you do.
Once you have everything connected, be sure to have another fuse to put in the "add-a-fuse." Why? Because if you connect the LEDs in the panel and only one fuse in the connector, then your LEDs will work and your parking lights will not. Unless you choose to play around with everything on your own to avoid putting an extra fuse in there, having two fuses in the "add-a-fuse" will make everything work perfectly fine.
So there you go! I will have pictures up tomorrow of them in working order at night so you can see how sweet they are....If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask, I want to help as many as possible!
5/31/11 Update ---- Here's the final product everyone!!! Sorry if any seem blurry, it's tough to keep the camera from moving at all when taking pics at night, ha.
Green!
Believe it or not, this is the white!
I wanna say this is aqua!
Orange!
Blue!
Red!
Yellow!
Purple!
Now these are just a few of the colors, apparently there are 15 different colors....these are the most definitive so here you go! If you guys want, I can put up a video demonstrating the different patterns...just let me know!!
Also, check out my profile for new pics!
Last edited by Shanamarie54; 06-01-2011 at 12:38 AM.
Reason: Updated with Final product pics!!
Really great write-up. I'm also curious to see how they look at night if you could post some pics at some point. This is one of the mods my girl really wants me to do so I better get on it soon.
Really great write-up. I'm also curious to see how they look at night if you could post some pics at some point. This is one of the mods my girl really wants me to do so I better get on it soon.
I will have the pics up tomorrow Your girl will love it! The pkg comes with a remote so you don't have to mess with it too much, and there's different combos and speed settings so you won't get distracted while driving.
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DIY LED Interior Accent Lights FULL instructions...pics included!
4te-eco
2011 Kia Forte Koup
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