Interior LED lights upgrade with pictures.

[alexk243]

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.

What "K" was the ones you have pictures in your car?

[Brucebo]

I replaced the front overhead map lights in my 1999 S70 with the linked bulbs below from Amazon. The front lights are bayonet, +12V center polarity. They worked fine for the front but unfortunately, even thought the incandescent bulbs are the same, the interior lights over the rear doors are -12V center polarity and I have no intention of hacking up the fixtures. The lamps down by the kick panels are wedge base and I'm looking into replacing them next. Also I hooked both the incandescent and the LED bulbs to a 12V battery and measured the current draw. The incandescent drew 356 mA. The LED drew 83 mA. The LED bulb was slightly brighter and much whiter. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00VDR6YEK

[deadbadugly]

Thanks Volvofan94. I know it's been 8+ years, but this information is exactly what I was looking for. Tomorrow I'm doing it with my reading lights.

Hi All,

I did this conversion on my 850 turbo. I have to say the interior looks much nicer than it did with the old incandescent bulbs. Nice write up Red Arrow!

But I did a different thing for the rear lights. First of all, I purchased similar lights to the ones Red Arrow used. As we know the polarity on those needs to be reversed in order for the LEDs to light up. However, I really didn't want to modify the factory light housings to do it. Instead I swapped the wire leads inside the metal light bulb base. It actually works and I'm very happy with the outcome.

Here's how I did it:
1. The SMD bulb is able to be removed from it's base. I used my soldering iron to melt the solder on the (+) point (bottom point) of the bulb. Once it's melted, the bulb was able to be removed easily from its base. Now you can see the leads.

2. Once the bulb was removed, you'll notice two wires. The positive wire is the longer one that goes all the way to the lower part of the bulb. This wire will need to be bent up so it can touch the metal side. The negative wire, will need to be extended so it can go down to the bottom part of the base.

2013-04-23 22.07.31.jpg

3. Now for the tricky part; extending the negative wire to the the bottom point. I found a solid small gauge wire I wasn't using and stripped the insulation off of it. Taking my soldering iron and a steady hand, I soldered the extension wire to the negative wire.

4. When you're happy with the result, the bulb can be reinserted into its base. Melt the solder on the bottom of the bulb just enough so the newly extended (-) wire can stick through. Push the bulb back into the base. Fill in with additional solder and trim excess wire length as needed.

5. Insert the bulb into the factory housing and install the unit in your car. Looks nice, huh?