#121
LOL stop, yer killing me.....Originally Posted by subwoofery
#122
the w535 was in my car for over a year. the 149bt was a fluke and I knew from the moment I got it I wanted something else. unfortunately, no one really *carries* these things so the only way to find out if you like something is to try it. and I afraid of getting myself some Disney points in the process.
#123
A step outside of audio for a second...
My wife's 2013 Accord has a little blue 'ambiance' LED at the dome light area that I think is really cool. It's subtle enough to provide some lighting over the console/shifter without being distracting. So, I figured why shouldn't I have the same thing...
Ordered a few LEDs from Oznium. In particular, I ordered a 3mm Blue LED for this particular task. Here's the link:
Super Bright Pre-wired LEDs
^ I chose pre-wired because I didn't want to deal with soldering them up myself.
This is the exact one:
LED on the table:
LED in a little hole I drilled:
Moved to the car for testing with various resistances and physical placement of the LED in the hole (discussed below).
(the bleed through on the headliner is just because the map light piece wasn't fully seated yet; I haven't fully installed this yet since I am waiting before I pull the deck to do some other things)
Results:
It works. I mean, it's a simple little 12v LED so it'd be hard for it not to *work*. But, I mean it functions like I want. I played around with varying resistances and settled on a combination that got me about 70kohm resistance. YMMV.
I tried to take some pictures but even with the DSLR, it was hard to really capture the difference. But, suffice it to say, I really dig it. It adds a little touch to the cabin and will help with lighting the hardwired remote and volume knob when they're installed.
The final install will have this wired in to the illumination circuit off the stock harness. I considered using the dimmer switch but the light is so unobtrusive that I don't really see the need in doing that.
Note: A word of warning to anyone who wishes to attempt the same thing: be mindful of your rear-view mirror and items on your dash. When I was testing this out, I initially flush mounted the LED. Doing this caused it to be visible in the rear-view which is NOT something you want to see while driving. So, I countersunk it a bit and I also SANDED the LED down so it would diffuse the light a bit more and knock down the areas where it was more dense. This will make more sense if you have played with LEDs before; they aren't really omni. They have a couple hot spots here and there. Sanding them down with some fine grit sand paper helps this. Just be mindful of this when you go to install one like this. Make sure to test the location and various resistances first before making it permanent. It would have sucked if I had CA glued this thing flush mount and then seen the light reflected in the rearview, then have to re-do it all. Radio Shack sells resistors for a couple bucks. Or just order some. But go ahead and get some. I'd recommend higher values; low values won't do enough to knock the brightness down. Or, you can drill a smaller hole and concentrate the light to an area. My wife's accord is like this, but I wanted mine to be more evenly dispersed so I didn't do that.
As an aside, if you guys are in to tinkering with 12v, I really suggest you buy a 12v power supply. This made life incredibly easy for this task, since I just took the PS with me outside and plugged it in while I tested this out. Beat having to pull the headunit to tap in to the illumination circuit while playing around. I've got a couple other small LED lighting tasks I want to try next. one of them being to light up the backside of the volume knob on the console if I have the time.
#124
nice touch. simple things add so much
#125
more testing for the console remote area...
I had planned to wire the alpine remote directly in to the headunit. I tested this a couple months back and it actually works on the w535hd and the 149bt I had. Just cut off the LED from the remote board and wire the remote's LED +/- to a 1/8" stereo jack plug in the correct manner and it works like a steering wheel button would, excpet you use the alpine remote.
I had planned to do that with the w957hd but thanks to the new idatalink stuff, that method no longer works. so, instead of hardwiring the remote to the headunit, I just extended the IR LED to the remote. I took it out to the car to test some locations and what I found worked best was hiding the LED transmitter in the dome light. It actually works very well; has excellent LOS with the headunit.
This is just to give you an idea of the setup. Here's the remote with the LED transmitter hardwires hanging out:
LED transmitter at the dome light. This will of course be hidden by the cover (which doesn't block the signal at all).
The end result will have the volume knob + alpine remote located at the console and hardwired in. The alpine remote will be powered from the Helix's remote output voltage so I don't have to worry about replacing batteries. Hope to have it completed by this weekend.
#126
These are actually called "submarine lighting", for obvious reasons. I also have plans to incorporate a couple in my current car that lacks them.
Nick
#127
makes sense. my wife's accord has one and my folks' CR-V does as well. I did some googling a couple weeks ago when I was trying to decide what color to use and I found this. Pretty cool research (no pun intended).
#128
ambient light and IR relocation are complete.
IR led is inside the dome light, out of sight, and works perfectly.
ambient light off:
ambient light on:
One of these days I'll get my DSLR out and take legit pictures. But, I'm too lazy right now.
#129
I have the snap grommets for a 3 and 5MM LED if you want one or two.
These LED's are recessed in the TL's dome light. You cannot see them unless you lean up and look up towards the bottom of the rear view mirror. Blueish tint on the base and red on the Types S. (same as the dash lights on both) I'd try to recess or find a small diffuser.
This might work: http://www.ebay.com/itm/20pcs-100pcs...item2c856222a4
#130
Oznium actually sells some like that but I don't think they'd fit. The lip around the map light is about 6mm wide and the housing nut on the holder oznium sells looks to be larger than that.
I got this to work. Looks pretty good. Not OEM but no one is going to notice unless you point it out. Like I'm doing here. Lol.
Are your snap grommets pretty thin? (That's what she said)
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