how can i do this, do i just feed the wire through the vent, and what is a easy wire to connect them to for a constant power souce, or can i wire them to a fuse, i tried that before with my civic and caught it on fire, im electrically retarded, please help

 

First off, what car do you have? If you have an xB, I can help you.

 

your getting all your ideas from that japanese site, aren't you? lol, i took a look at it, and i think im gunna do the whole inside of the car with blue leds, including in the vents.......for my installation, i just mount 15 led holders from radio schack......and depending on how bright they are im gunna mount a few in the middle of the vents, away from view, so all you get is a light glow.....im going to use solder and 20awg speaker wire to wire them up.....i also have the proper resistors and stuff like that......for the window roll up leds....are there leds all ready in there, or do i just connect it to a 12V source...? then again...i have all my interior lights wired up to a switch box, so i suppose ill just run a wire from that for the window leds.......

 

im also thinking i would like to add a "volume gauge thingy" the bars that show you the volume.....they light up....start at green, then as you go up, yellow, then red......do you know what i mean? i have a set on my tapedeck at home, and my VCR....id like to add a pair to the dash somewhere, but maybe in shades of blue(ideally)

 

my bad i have an xb, so please help

 

bump
help please

 

PM max2k
I think he is currently the LED king

 

Hahahaha, LED King status!

I'll write a full picture supported walk through later, but for now check this out.

It's a lot easier to do the center 2 air vents than the outer 2. To do the center, start by taking off your center dash and taking your radio out. Once you've done that you'll have pretty good access to the air vents. Just poke a hole in the side for your wires (the duct is made of some thin plastic that's easy enough to poke holes in) and mount your LEDs in the vent.

To do the outer two you pretty much have to take the entire dashboard off, which isn't that big of a deal but is a semi-advanced maneuver. You'll need a philips head screwdriver, a 10mm socket, and a 12mm socket with a nice long handle for taking off the airbag.

Start with the center dash, then take out your speakers and spedometer. There are a few screws around the radio and behind the speedo and speakers. Take them out. You can do this all with a philips head screwdriver.

When all that's taken apart, pop that little square cover above the passenger's shelf out and unbolt the airbag. That bolt is wicked tight (hell yes I'm from New England) and requires some major force to undo. I put a 2 foot long piece of pipe on the end of my socket wrench and applied some heavy pressure. When it unsticks there'll be a bit of a cracking noise. Don't be alarmed, it's just tightened extra hard at the factory.

Once that airbag is unbolted you should be able to pop the dash up. Unplug the airbag (yellow connector near the passenger side speaker) and you're in business.

This is where you should be:



Poke some holes and mount your LEDs. I prefer to point them toward the back of the air vents so the light bounces off and looks sweet. Wire everything up (there's a convenient factory grounding location right behind the kickpanels, look for the white wires with black stripes) and you're done.

This is how your install should look before you've stuck your cluster in(this is the left hand side of the center dash. the upper dashboard is taken off.):


When I do vent lights I use these 3 LED clusters. I was looking around autolumination though, and I think a couple of these LED diamond/crystal things would look really freaking sweet in some vents. I also was thinking how rad it would be to have LEDs that lit up blue when the air conditioning is on and red when the heat is on.

Any questions?

 

^^^ told ya so!!

 

Oh well, m@'s car has a lot more money in it than mine does.

 

Max2k. Actually when I put LEDs in the side air vents I just took the speaker cover off and removed teh speaker. I was able to fit my hand far enough down and make a hole and insert the LED without it being visible from teh front.

I would give this a try first before you tear your dash apart for 2 little LEDs

 

I see how you did your lights, but there is a much easier way. All you need to do is find four L E D lights and start by taking your middle consoul off were the radio is. Then simply pop off the part around your speedometer, then unscrew it so that it is loose but not off. Then take off the speaker covers off of your front two speakers. Now you have access to all of your vents from the back. With one light you can mount it in the back and no wires are show when it is bright at night. Then just hook up the wires to any 12 volt wire source in your car. Or as i did i spliced it into my blue neon's under the dash.


Hint: the vent is plastic and is very thin so with a piece of metal and lighter you can burn a perfect hole for the L E D light.

 

Is there any step by step threads telling you how to do LEDs in the vent. I know nothing about electrical stuff.

 

First you take the wire and connect it to longer wires which you can do by clipping together with wire conectors, then the red wire goes with red and black with black. Then just find pretty much any power source that is 12 volts like your cig lighter or if you have interior light plug it into those wires underneath the dash because that is close and easy. You really don't need to worry about pulling your whole dash off to do it.

 

so what size resistor would i need if i'm running 5000mcd leds?

 

i got an xb, and used 6 leds in my car hooked it up to a switch and love em. ill try to post pics soon, but all you do is go to like autozone, buy two packs of three leds, drill the holes, mount um, run wires, and hook all it up to a sep. circut like i did. looks tough though, gotta love it./.. and im only 16...hey hey bump

 

anyone know where i can learn the basics of LED's???? 12volts of power run through a resistor to the light? is that it? well anyways, can someone give me a link to the basics of LED's....

 

 

http://metku.net/index.html?sect=vie...calc/index_eng
however if you look you can find preresistored LEDS at autozone/advanceauto

 

on my outside vents, i removed the speakers cover and drilled an led from the top facing down. on the inner vents i took the radio bezal apart and fired an led from the inside out.