I'm looking into wiring some LEDs underneath my 1st Gen's speaker grills, and I have NO electrical experience. 1st off, what would be the best route to go as far as the LEDs? The Oznium Super bright pre-wired LED lights or Flexible LED Strips? 2nd off, the wiring. These obviously need power, so do I tap into a power source somewhere? And 3rd off, a switch. How do I go about wiring these into a switch?

Thanks in advance. I don't know much at all about wiring, but hopefully someone can enlighten me.

 

The best diagrams I've found for beginners can be found at the Oznium forums. Depending on how bright you are looking to do and to what level of visual perception, you may go with a small 4.7" flexible strip. Mount the strip on the inside top of the rim to give indirect lighting. Make sure to put on a way to quickly release the wire in case you ever need to take your door off again.

For the switched source, I would do a relay off of ACC power. That way the lights will not stay on if you forget to turn them off.

Best of luck and post up your results when you get it done.

 

i totally want to do this too and in the same position.
let us know how it goes!

 

This guy gave me some good pointers, but i'm still pretty lost. I'll probably try this eventually....At least i'm not the only person who is clueless....you and me both..

 

I took and ran two LEDs in the grille I drilled two holes at 10 and 2 mounted blue lights and wired them in with my speakers so they pulse with the music

 

that sounds sweet. how exactally did you do it?

 

I got the leds from autozone. they come with about a 2 ft lead of wire and housings for the leds I drilled holes to fit the housings and just ran red to positive and black to negative speaker wires. I have found that the radio has to be turned up about half way to really make them shine but worked great did it for the rear too

 

Pics! You can get a bag of LEDs from ebay for pretty cheap...good for practice/projects.

 

i'm waiting on my custom speaker covers so....it might be a while before i get around to it...if ever

 

Do cathodes.......

 

Nice, only problem would be the reflection off the glass when your driving.

 

have no reflection at all on my set up

 

yeah, it's not bad at all. Those cathodes are attached to the underside of some plexi plates that were made for my tweeters. The light spreads very nice too.

 

you should also consider some in your vents...


and here is my old setup....



I was a total beginner before i started on the scion....its really not hard...

 

I'm not going to be doing this now, but I've got a cool idea. I'll post pics up once its done

 

a little off topic...

back in h.s. I had these subs that had translucent cones with LED strips set behind them. the guy that made them wired the power into the speaker wire so when the sub hit the cones themselves would light up.

the guy that made them is no longer in business (at least i don't think he is - he may have moved shop) but it was a really cool idea. they hit pretty hard too.

Maybe you could wire it up like that to be different. One color always on and another color when the speaker hits.

 

That is AWESOME! How did you do that? Is it just a red and an amber led? I love the effect, I want to do it to my box! Any info would be greatly appreciated.

 

it is a single orange led mounted in the vent...i get all my stuff from ozmium.com...

I just poked a tiny hole in the vent plastic and fed the led through, you just need to do it down far enough so you cant see the led, just the light from it... mine are pointed at the back wall...

you can mount them with electrical tape and let the stiffness of the led wire help you, really it is mostly trail and error....

good luck and let me know if you need more help

 

That's much easier than I thought. I was expecting some kind of combination of LEDs to get that affect as I can see red, orange and yellow in that pic. The mounting and wiring I can handle. Thanks for the info!

Edit: What size LEDs did you use? 3mm? 5mm? Superflux?

 

WHOA. The LEDs in the grocery bag hooks look badass :D