[Carbon Sky]

Put in a Cipa 36500 auto-dimming mirror with compass, thermometer and map/courtesy lights recently.

http://www.solsticeforum.com/forum/f11/cipa-36500-mirror-install-62892/

And put in seat heaters before that:

Power for seat heaters through "add-a-circuit"? - Page 4 - Saturn Sky Forums: Saturn Sky Forum

So now that I've taken the time to learn the locations of various important wires, and tapped and confirmed what they are, I feel pretty confident in addressing others issue that bother me.

The trunk lighting is ENTIRELY inadequate. My solution thus far has been to leave a cordless LED worklight in the trunk and turn it on when needed, or rather frustrated enough. So I want to put some lighting in. I found this puppy:

High-Intensity LED Flood Light

It should be more then bright enough, and the aluminum housing gives it a finished look, as opposed to a plastic LED strip. And the wide angle (120*) should easily cover the entire trunk.

So while I was at it, I decided to get 10" red LED strips, one for each foot well:

Piranha Bar

And one feature I've seen on other cars I found really classy was lighting up of the floor when the door opens. So I got some flexible LED strips to mount on the bottom edge of the door:

Ribbon LED Strips

I got these in white, and since they are surface mount LEDs on a strip, they have a very flat profile, which should allow me to adhere them to the bottom of the interior door panel and still clear the body. I measured the gap with a vernier, and there's almost .25" gap between the inner door panel, and the plastic trim that lines the body, and these are only .09" thick, so I should have lots of room to spare.

I should get these sometime next week. Any pic requests when I install?

 

[Critterman]

I have the floods in my door 3 to a door but I can't load pictures here

 

[Carbon Sky]

I have the floods in my door 3 to a door but I can't load pictures here

Interesting, I'd be curious as to how you mounted them. They look kinda large in the picture. Can't think of obvious ways you have mounted.

3 to a door? Is it REALLY bright?

 

[cartmann32]

Those floods are amazingly bright....I just put 10 spots on the back of my boat.....BOOM.....brightness!

If Critterman mounted them inside the door panels, then clearance isn't and issue

 

[TomatoSoup]

DDM (supptg vendors) have both trunk and hood lighting kits. The trunk is a stick-on cct board. The hood has a purpose-built angled housing. See: http://www.solsticeforum.com/forum/f101/engine-trunk-light-kit-ddm-60578/

 

[lil goat]

I like the Ozinium products but always found them not the cheapest place to buy superbrightleds, the ones on Critters car are drilled into the bottom of the door, he has lambo doors, they are freakin bright! DDM did them, I watched.

 

[Sly Bob]

A lot of the products that are available at Oznium aren't available at Superbrightleds. I have bought lights from both places and find the prices comparable. And as a Canadian, they will ship any quantity here without minimums.

I wish Superbrightleds would do that.

 

[Carbon Sky]

LED's arrived!

The Oznium LEDs I ordered have arrived. I tested each with a 9V just to make sure nothing was damaged/defective and all is well. Thought I'd post a few pics of the products in case anyone was thinking of ordering from Oznium.

Red LEDs for foot well lighting:

On

Off zoomed in

Thin LED strips I will mount on the underside of the doors for floor lighting as you get in and out of the car:

On

Off zoomed in

This is one large LED mounted in a cast aluminum piece (likely as a heat sink) that I will use for the trunk. It's a flood light style 120* wide lighting angle.

On

Off

Just waiting on my shipment from sherco that has some miscellaneous electrical parts I will need for this project like another "add-a-circuit", some fuse holders, etc. If they get here before the weekend, I know what I'll be up to this weekend.

 

[cartmann32]

Two things:

The single LED is housed in that unit for heat reasons, but mainly for waterproofing, and different mounting options.

I'd make sure you're careful with that thin LED strip when mounting it for floor lights under your door panels. (1) they may be thin, but the LEDs do stick up a hair, and if your door is off alignment at all, they may scratch and break. (2) those are not the waterproof ones....be careful with water getting on or near your lights.

 

[ignaro]

Hmm

I admit I don't get the appeal to having lots of interior lights. That said, clearly lots of people do and I'm sure we'd all love pictures!

It didn't happen if you can't post pictures!-- try Imageshack or another free image hosting, then click the "mountains" icon in the posting window and paste a link to the image.-- In case anyone didnt know that already!

 

[Carbon Sky]

Actually, the thin LED strips will be adhered to the bottom of my doors, and once applied with the 3M adhesive they came with, I intend on masking the door, and brushing on a clear epoxy resin both to help secure it and to waterproof it. This is the stuff I use:

West System Epoxy - Lee Valley Tools

I've used it before in a similar manner to affix and waterproof individual raw LEDs on a previous car project. But thanks for the concern :thumbs:

I will be using the tube LEDs for the foot wells.

Two things:

The single LED is housed in that unit for heat reasons, but mainly for waterproofing, and different mounting options.

I'd make sure you're careful with that thin LED strip when mounting it for floor lights under your door panels. (1) they may be thin, but the LEDs do stick up a hair, and if your door is off alignment at all, they may scratch and break. (2) those are not the waterproof ones....be careful with water getting on or near your lights.

 

[Carbon Sky]

I never really thought about it until a couple things got to me, or appealed to me.

First, I was sick and tired of being constantly high beamed in our low riding cars. So that started my search for an auto-dimming mirror. From what I saw, you needed 2 GM mirrors, somewhat hard to find, even more so if you are in Canada and junkers in the US won't sell/ship to you. So I started looking into the Gentex GENK31. But I had things like slow to dim/undim, and then I found the Cipa 36500, which was superior to the GENK31, and at the time I found it, on sale on Amazon for a great price ($50 less than anywhere else I could find it.

After I put in the mirror, I eventually realised I had 2 options for power, either a constant power source, or one that goes on with the key in the ignition. If I went with constant power, then I would have to turn the mirror's auto-dim feature on and off, but then would have properly functioning courtesy lights. OR, I could have the power to the mirror come on and off with the key in the ignition, but then the courtesy lights would only function if the key was in the ignition, or rather part of the RAP (retained accessory power circuit) which does not come on until the key goes in, and then lasts for about 10-30 seconds or so after you leave.

So I figured, I'll leave the mirror on the key ignition circuit, and I'll wire in constant power lighting so I will actually have lighting when I unlock the car and open the doors. So I decided I would go with red LEDs in the footwell, mostly because it's generally better for night vision, while also being high enough contrast to still see everything well.

And this was a similar problem with the trunk. The trunk lighting is a joke. I'm pretty sure as much as you don't like extra lights, you'd love to have better lighting in your trunk right?

And a classy feature I've seen is lighting that lights up the floor as the door opens. Often these lights are either on the bottom of the side view mirror, or on the bottom side of the interior door panel. This is really the only "non-essential" lighting upgrade between these 3 in my opinion, but like a55holes, everyone's got one right?

I admit I don't get the appeal to having lots of interior lights. That said, clearly lots of people do and I'm sure we'd all love pictures!

It didn't happen if you can't post pictures!-- try Imageshack or another free image hosting, then click the "mountains" icon in the posting window and paste a link to the image.-- In case anyone didnt know that already!

 

[Carbon Sky]

Results

Pictures taken in the dark with no flash.

Foot well and floor lighting:

Trunk lighting:

Came out exactly the way I wanted them too. I used the same "go to ground" that is controlled by the BCM when the door opens, it goes to ground, and I tied in all the lighting to this ground. I tapped position 27 in the fuse panel in the passenger foot well, which is for interior lighting, which is constant live. The lights come on when you unlock the doors, or open the doors, then stay on for a second or two, before dimming slowly.

I ran the wiring for the floor lights behind the weather stripping the runs along the door's bottom edge. Then I have it sneak out near the door stop, then underneath the weather stripping where the a-pillar meets the car, then up and around and over the windshield header for the driver side, and downwards to the fuse panel on the passenger side.

I ran the wiring for the driver side footwell through the centre stack, and the passenger foot well is pretty self-explanatory. As for the trunk lining, I removed the liner, ran it most of the way down, then into an opening between the outter and inner layers of the trunk lid, then into the rubber tubing between the trunk lid and the trunk surround. Then just straight to the trunk light, and wired in parallel.

Edit: I just noticed that my red LED bar lights are still just ever so slightly on. I can't even tell in the passenger foot well, but I can just make out the red reflection in the polished pedals. Not very noticeable, and I kinda like it. Makes me inherently think security system . . . probably because of the colour. I may think about putting in a resistor, but I'm more worried about the power draw then I am about the slight red reflection in my stainless pedals, and the resistor will still chew up power. I'll give it a couple days and then decide if I wanna throw in a little resistor.

 

[TomatoSoup]

Edit: I just noticed that my red LED bar lights are still just ever so slightly on. I can't even tell in the passenger foot well, but I can just make out the red reflection in the polished pedals. Not very noticeable, and I kinda like it. Makes me inherently think security system . . . probably because of the colour. I may think about putting in a resistor, but I'm more worried about the power draw then I am about the slight red reflection in my stainless pedals, and the resistor will still chew up power. I'll give it a couple days and then decide if I wanna throw in a little resistor.

This is true even if you don't have LED lights, it's just that with the factory mirror bulbs the current is too low to light them, while the LEDs are efficient enough to show some light.

A couple of us measured the current flow when the car is off. After about 10-15mins (can't remember exactly and haven't looked for the post) the overall current flow in the car drops to a few milliamps - presumably, this is the "battery save" feature. Thus, not worth putting in resistors plus this would reduce your light when the LEDs are full on.

YMMV

UPDATE: OK, found the thread... key statement was this (from 2kwk4u): "OK NOW it's in sleep mode. A whopping 6 mA draw with spikes to ~15 mA each time the security LED flashes."

Thread at: mirror leds

 

[Carbon Sky]

Exactly, if the ground circuit never fully opens, then it would draw regardless of whether my LEDs were in or not, and whether I added resistors or not. Which when I realised was happening was more of a concern to me then the fact that the lights don't fully turn off.

Like I said, I can't even see it on the passenger side. I can only make out a bit of a reflection, primarily from the stainless clutch pedal.

This is true even if you don't have LED lights, it's just that with the factory mirror bulbs the current is too low to light them, while the LEDs are efficient enough to show some light.

A couple of us measured the current flow when the car is off. After about 10-15mins (can't remember exactly and haven't looked for the post) the overall current flow in the car drops to a few milliamps - presumably, this is the "battery save" feature. Thus, not worth putting in resistors plus this would reduce your light when the LEDs are full on.

YMMV

UPDATE: OK, found the thread... key statement was this (from 2kwk4u): "OK NOW it's in sleep mode. A whopping 6 mA draw with spikes to ~15 mA each time the security LED flashes."

Thread at: mirror leds

 

[AztekzRpurty]

I tied into the map light circuit also, and replaced the map lights with led bulbs.

I've added some to the engine compartment now, still on the same circuit.

Trunk is next.

 

[Carbon Sky]

Update

I was working under my car the other day, and noticed that one of the nine LEDs in the strip that I have mounted under my door went out.

To be honest, I was never 100% impressed with the light strips. They were a little too blue/purple for my taste. Granted I ordered "cool white" as opposed to "warm white". I had ordered other "cool white" LED items from Oznium before, and none were ever that "cool". And though no one would ever really see them, I kinda wanted to upgrade to something a little more protected/finished in appearance.

So I ordered a set of these:

Waterproof SMD Bar

They are 20" long, so I cut them in half and put one under each door. I went over the technical specifications for these bar lights, and tested out the depth between the bottom of the door, and the plastic door sill. Surprisingly, it's HUGE! Almost 1cm (about a 1/2"). So these bars were definitely thin enough. I could stack 2, and have a little room to spare.

Also, these bars appear to use the exact same LEDs. The 6" strips had 9 LEDs, these have 30 for a 20" bar, so cut in half to 10" it's 15 LEDs per door now instead of 9. Is it 66% brighter? You tell me:

Bar (New)

Strip (Old)

Looks brighter and whiter to me. Notice how the new one "drowns" out the brightness of the footwell lighting? The footwell lighting seems so much brighter on the old side in comparison.


Oh, forgot to add, too lazy to start a new thread about the last stuff I had:

I recently painted my chrome grill satin black. Loving it! It's encouraged me to do the same to the chrome vent grills. Gonna try to get that done in the next few days.

I have a daily driver up in Toronto, and it gets cold enough that because plastic shrinks/expands much more than stainless steel, it shrinks and causes the stainless strips to bow up in the middle off the plastic. I've already had them replaced under warranty twice, so I've given up on them. I'm gonna pull them off, use them as a template and put some 3M Di-Noc carbon fiber vinyl in to replace the stainless plates. Ordered some light and dark smoked tint for the tail lights as well. Gonna try to tone down the bright red to a more cherry. I think the light will do, but the stuff's cheap, so I ordered both dark and light. Ordered some matte black vinyl to do the windshield surround as well. Never did like the silver windshield surround.