Interior LED lights upgrade with pictures.

Post by **Red-Arrow** » 18 Dec 2010, 20:42

Well guys the old tungsten bulbs give off a orange glow that is fine but makes the car feel dated when the modern cars come with the crisp white LED lighting.

I decide to buy those SMD surface mount diode bulbs on Ebay. The problem was even though they are plug and play the SMD bulbs are polarity directions +- are fixed and they won't work in with -+. Guess what the Volvo's lighting is -+ dam it!

Well It required a rethink and I was going to remake the lamp holders but that was hassle. The simplest solution was to rewire the bulb by flipping the polarity using wires.

Its self explanatory really once you see the pictures below. The rear trunk SMD was a 16 unit festoon bulb that required no rewiring thankfully. 38mm in length.

These bulbs only cost $5 a pair for the smaller ones and the festoon one cost around $8. bargain! Since doing these mods I did the footwell lights as well and they look great as well.

Again mods of the pictures are out of order please do what you want here to reorder them.

Post by **thecheat** » 18 Dec 2010, 21:30

I'm jealous of such a clean red wagon! Very nice wrietup!

Post by **matthew1** » 18 Dec 2010, 22:17

^^^ Agreed. Beauty wagon, super writeup, Red Arrow. Like anyone who does a decent writeup with photos (or two), you get MVS Contributor status. (I apologize in advance for all the young women throwing themselves at you because of it.)

Post by **FlyingVolvo** » 18 Dec 2010, 22:42

Oooh... I want that! Looks like a bit of a hassle if you don't know what you're doing though...

Post by **Red-Arrow** » 19 Dec 2010, 01:24

Well thank you guys

I have lots of threads I intended to put up with pictures but there is never enough time in the day.

This is a great websites so its only right that I give back. Content and contributors make this place great.

Long live Matthews Volvo Site

Post by **thecheat** » 19 Dec 2010, 07:34

Well don't just tease, give him the badge!

matthew1 wrote:^^^ Agreed. Beauty wagon, super writeup, Red Arrow. Like anyone who does a decent writeup with photos (or two), you get MVS Contributor status. (I apologize in advance for all the young women throwing themselves at you because of it.)

Post by **erikv11** » 19 Dec 2010, 10:16

This looks like a nice upgrade and its great you posted so don't get me wrong, but this writeup lacks many key details. I don't really know what you did and wouldn't be able to do it myself. And I'm not shy about basic electrical work on my car.

Post by **matthew1** » 19 Dec 2010, 10:21

thecheat wrote:Well don't just tease, give him the badge!

matthew1 wrote:^^^ Agreed. Beauty wagon, super writeup, Red Arrow. Like anyone who does a decent writeup with photos (or two), you get MVS Contributor status. (I apologize in advance for all the young women throwing themselves at you because of it.)

Ah funny you should bring that up, you'd think the badge would be automatic on a status change, and it is. But this time -- for the first time ever -- I actually remembered to check/act if the user has an existing avatar, which he did. So instead of bulldozing his avatar, I put him in the MVS Contributors group which overwrites all avatars, but restored his avatar after. I was very proud I remembered for once

.

Red, if you want the Contributor avatar, simply delete yours, and it will default to

Or make a hybrid of the two if you want.

TERINASSsydwayz · Post by **TERINASSsydwayz** » 19 Dec 2010, 11:22

I have been thinking about doing this very thing, thanks for pushing me over the edge!

Post by **RyanGLT** » 19 Dec 2010, 12:43

I'm totally doing this in the next month or so. AWESOME.