LED License Lights: Cheap and Dirty

[jscribble]

Thought I would share this, as I haven't seen too much diy on this. Pictures blow, and for that I am sorry, but I will do my best to explain clearly.

Required junk:

Leds - white 5mm from radio shack (sub your choice)
Resistors - 330ohm 1/4 watt or 1/8 watt
snips
soldering iron
shrink tube if desired
beer (all e30 jobs require alcohol)
20-30 mins



My license lights were out, and I don't want to attract any additional attention, so I started searching for an led replacement. Now, I'm a cheap ass about some things, and I was not about to pay $10+ per bulb, and set out to radio shack to get some parts.



Voltage at the connectors (for me at least) is 13.4, so I picked up some 1/4 watt 330 ohm resistors (1/8 watt should be fine too) and a pair of 5mm white leds for each lense.  Total cost for all was about $5. If you want to use more or less leds google "led calculator" and play around, or just calculate it all in your head if you're that smart.



Anyway, solder it all up, paying attention to polarity, resistor goes to negative.

The long lead on an led is + and if you look at the led closely, has the smaller bit of metal (hammer) Negative side has the large bit (anvil).



Resistors work either way.



I soldered directly to the contact points for the bulb, but you could make the connection a number of ways.

The Result:



I aimed the leds at the center of the plate, which I think looks best.  

Once again, sorry for the crappy pix, but it really is simple to do.  I also upgraded the interior dome lights to led, but used a 3 led array on either side. I'm happy with the results, but not very happy with the wiring. I used the festoon style bulb ends, drilled out, and solder the wiring to them, so they are styled like the led replacement bulbs, but they are not enclosed, and somewhat flimsy because of it. I can take a pic of it if anyone wants to see it, but it's far from my best work.

[carlos318is]

Looking good mate

So lets have a look at the other one then:D

[jscribble]

Thanks! I'll try to get some pics up of the interior lights tomorrow. I think they look very nice, as the light is very white, instead of almost dingy when they were oem.

[carlos318is]

Look foward to seeing to pics :cool:

[jscribble]

Here is a quick shot at work, you can see how bright and white they are even though the bay doors at the shop are open, and it's very light inside.

3 leds per side


I really like them, it's subtle, but makes the car somehow seem more up to date.

I'll try to get a pic while it's dark up soon.

[orangegreasemnky]

here is a really good LED site to make it even cheaper

http://www.unique-leds.com/index.php?target=categories&category_id=93