Got some LED's today, put them in my truck. I have 2 on each side.
My next project is to replace the dash lights with blue ones.. then eventually get a new stereo, around christmas time.


What do you think?

 

very clean look.. looks good.. inspired me to do some to my truck now.. haha... well... after the transmission issue

 

Looks good.
I've got my own little light project going on, I'm wiring in extra reverse lights (I can't see **** at night when I'm backing up).

 

I got inspired by the Air Indicator light in the tri-axle I used to drive and popped some red bee-hive lights under my dash. makes for a nice glow...but not so harsh
Still I like those LED's...seems they're everywhere nowadays

<dodgerules> I installed 55W halogen tractor floodlights under my rear bumper and they made a world a difference, I just had to watch how they were wired, I wound up running a lead right from the battery with a relay connected to the back-up lights with a swith on the B pillar behind my seat, otherwise I just got 4 dim lights...good luck!

 

Hey Red, where did you get all the hardware and how did you install them? I have been wanting to do the same thing for some time now, but I dont have the know how.

 

all you need is LED's and some voltage regulation. Blue LED's run at about 5volts so grab a 5v regulator (like an LM7805)at any good electronics shop and just run power and ground with the regulator in line. most other colors run at around 3volt (LM7803)so adjust your regulator accordingly. this project is pretty idiot proof since the LED is a diode its impossible to burn it out from wiring it backwards. you could use resistors to drop the voltage but they do that by burning off voltage as heat so they dont last forever and they can get hot. there are also companies that claim to have "12v LED's" they just have integrated voltage control and cost like 15x as much as just buying a voltage regulator

 

Thanks for getting back to me. Few more questions if you dont mind. What gage wiring do I use? Where should I pull the power from? And can I run them in-line or do they have to each have separate power source?

 

nevermind, Kurby. I found some LED wiring schematics online. Thanks again for the info.

 

I wired mine to my stereo.. Just pry off the far left end of the dash (with the door open), and theres all your fuses and stuff.. hook it up to anything there. You could use the dome lights or whatever you want.. whatever you hook it up to has to be on to turn the lights on. I used the CD player so that whenever the cars on, or the keys at 3/4.. basicaly whenever the CD player is on, i can turn the lights on. However when its off, the lights cant turn on. Works fine... VERY simple.

 

in case it wasnt implied.. you can hook up the power like red said, thats perfect. you hook that power into the regulator, then you can run your own 5v circuit to connect all of your LED's. if you use a lot of LED's you need to pay attention to the amperage, figure (on the safe side) that a blue LED pulls about 50mw a pop, so you can hook up to 20 on one regulator. wire for LED's can be as thin as you want theres almost no amperage, in fact its probably better to run an obscure color of like 20ga wire so you can tell where it goes and that its a 5v line.