Interior LED lights upgrade with pictures.

Post by **jmmxc** » 19 Dec 2010, 13:33

[quote]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.

[/quote]
Well, the idea looks great...I am not sure there is a full explaination of what you did here....
I have some questions, since we are dealing with electrical modifications:
What is the (total) power requirements of the LED lamp? Since they are LED lamps I do not think you are exceeding the power of the original inside cabin lighting.
Would you please indicate the Wattage of the LED Lamps.
If there is no problem getting the correct barrel size I am thinking it is perhaps safer to rewire the fixture sockets themselves once you determine the polarity with an ohm meter.
That is great idea!!!.
I did replace my gearshift bulb with LED with a series 910 ohm resistor.
Far better than the original bulb that kept burning out.
Thanks for the write up.

jmmxc

Post by **thecheat** » 19 Dec 2010, 16:42

I've been toying with adding red map lights like in the MKV VW Jetta and GTI... should be fairly easy to get them up in the dome light area and just wire them to be always on with the key on.

Post by **mrreilly** » 19 Dec 2010, 18:49

Those LED's look brilliant! I almost got a set for my car last year but held off..
Good work!

Post by **FlyingVolvo** » 19 Dec 2010, 20:29

Red Arrow, could you provide a link to the exact lights you bought? I'm very interested!

viper69 · Post by **viper69** » 19 Dec 2010, 20:37

This is not self explanatory at all. The pictures are nice, but there is hardly any information at all provided. This isn't helpful.

Post by **Red-Arrow** » 19 Dec 2010, 20:45

The standard filament bulbs for the holder are BA9S bayonet bulbs that consume around 5 watts each or 0.42amps per bulbs. consider we have four BA9S bulbs, this means 1.66 amps of power is consumed. The rear festoon bulb is a 5 to 8 watt bulb but its not activated by the front or rear doors, nor by the switches on the main panel.

The problem with SMD bulbs (Surface Mounted Diodes) is the same problem LED's have, if you reverse the positive and negative flow they will not power up and worst case can burn them out, fill your trash can basically. The holders for the BA9S bulbs in the Volvo have the polarity or +- in the wrong order for the SMD bulbs, the pin is negative and shell is positive. This is not a problem for filament bulbs are they work with any polarity direction. In most cases the pin at the bottom of the BA9s is almost always positive+ and the shell is almost always negative. In the Volvo this is flip or out of phase. This has been done to save on wiring which is fair enough but for us its a problem here.

So the reason I have soldered the wires on the pin and shell of the SMD bulb are so I can switch or cross the positive polarity or +- around.

The SMD bulbs require 0.3 watts each. four bulbs require 1.2 watts or 0.1 amps. 16 times less power than the standard BA9s tungsten bulbs. This means you can leave your courtesy lights on for days and not flatten your battery

It would takes 2 to 3 weeks to flatten a battery.

You can actually buy these SMD boards with leads coming out of them. This would be better for the Volvo's. The only reason I bought the BA9S SMD bulbs is I assumed the polarity on the Volvo's holders would be standard positive pin and negative shell.

If I had know it was flipped I would have bought an SMD board with leads or wires coming out of them and this job would have been much simpler. Half of my SMD are shining light in the wrong direction. A Board of SMD would shine light in one direction which is better here.

Below are some pictures of the different kinds of SMD available that can work well in our lighting systems.

Standard BA9S Bulb

SMD BA9S bulb, which I bought but you don't have to. Just buy the SMD boards with wires so you can install them with easy.

Festoon Bulb can be used in the trunk, 16SMD are very bright compared to a filament bulb.

I hope this helps.

Post by **RyanGLT** » 19 Dec 2010, 20:48

looks like these are the ones he soldered to.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/2-T11-BA ... 0458481110

Post by **Red-Arrow** » 19 Dec 2010, 21:00

Correct, these work in the front dome courtesy lights but these will not work in the grab handles for the rear. You guys can buy two BA9S SMD bulbs and two SMD boards instead and avoid the hassle of soldering almost altogether. Also the SMD boards are brighter.

Chinese sellers are very quick when it comes to posting. I got mines in 8 days. I've bought things from NY which have taken 6 weeks to reach me on the West coast.

I also recommend replacing the rear license plate T5 bulbs with SMD T5 bulbs. I'll post the pictures when I find them.

viper69 · Post by **viper69** » 20 Dec 2010, 00:02

Thank you very much for the detailed information...now THAT is helpful. Hm..I wonder if I can do the same thing, BUT get them in white light..and not blue? Thanks a lot!

SO if I get these SMD boards w/the wires...Then what would be the things I would do next for installing them for the front dome reading lamps? I think the idea is great, but I'm having a bit of trouble putting it all together. This is a better alternative to bulbs!

Post by **Red-Arrow** » 20 Dec 2010, 03:22

Actually the lights are specifically or actual white, the SMD's I believe emit a colour of around 5000K or Kelvin which is the colour of a cold white tube light. Warm white would be 3800K or 4000K. The cameras white balance is off at night which determines how the colour in the pictures looks so I can assure you its not blue at all.

Interior LED lights upgrade with pictures.

Re: Interior LED lights upgrade with pictures.