LED for interior lighting
 

Hey Guys,

I'm not too experienced with LEDs. I read some places about resistors, etc. I want to replace some of the bulbs in the interior of the car with LED lights. For instance, when you open the door and a light shines, and also the lights you use when you want to take a look at a map.

To be honest, my current lights are really dim and I want a little more light in my life (lol). Could I use a direct replacement? or would I need to wire in some resistors?

All help is appreciated. Thanks!!!!




or if you guys have any better ideas on how to bring more light into the cabin at night, post it up!!!!

The 3rd gen guys are really into this and there's a lot of info in the Interior section of the forum.
You can start here.

I've done it.

I converted my dome lights to Luxeon 350mA white LEDs (the emitters only will fit inside the dome and map light housings) and a BuckPuck LED driver. They'll provide all the light you need. Heat really isn't an issue with 350mA, but I recommend mounting the backside of the emitter to a piece of aluminium with some thermal adhesive instead of merely mounting it directly to plastic.

Regular 5mm White LEDs aren't bright enough. You can get away with the really bright round 5mm RED, blue, and green LEDs and current-limiting resistors made by Cree. I used red 5mm LEDs as courtesy lighting as well as alternate dome lighting.