LED interior car lights?

[GLOCKshooter]

I would like to replace my map lights, dome lights, and door lights with LEDs. I have a 99 Chevy Tahoe. I searched and found a great DIY Tahoe thread, but I'm not up to speed on mods. I want to get drop in replacements. I see a lot of choices on e-bay (won't mention sites, I'm not spamming or pimpin'). A few questions before I buy:

1) Do I have to worry about resistors with interior lights? I know if you want to use exterior led signal indicators that can be a problem)

2) what color do I use for the best results behind the opaque lenses? Would it be better (or even possible) to replace the lenses?

3) What is the brightest type available now? Cree?

THANKS!

[ROVER]

1) So long as you're buying drop in replacements, instead of wiring up your own leds, no you don't need an additional resistor. The reason people buy extra resistors for the exterior led lights is in order to add a load to the circuit so that the flasher doesn't think the light is burned out and flash quickly. Interior lighting doesn't depend on things like this--you'll just be running some leds off a non flashing power source.

2) While white would probably be considered most normal, you could use what color leds you want, but you might not want to use certain colors like red or blue, which can get you into trouble if visible from outside. If you're lense if very white, you might look for a way to cut part of it out and replace it with something more clear or consider removing it all together. I've found removing mine makes the light brighter but less evenly distributed.

3) Because you said you want drop in replacements, I'll let someone else answer this. I believe this is a situation where modding would really shows it's advantages in that you can select the exact bin leds you want and choose how hard to run them---but I admit I am not in the know on this.

I made an array of cheap 5mm leds, which was much brighter than stock, and very white. Unfortunately, I wrecked it and didn't think to rip out the dome light before the car was towed away , so I can't give you any pictures. You may find good pictures in "ricer" forums, and since lots of people there like drop in and bolt on products-it might be a good place to start. Good luck, and please share pictures when you are done

[rudbwoy69camaro]

Originally Posted by ROVER

You may find good pictures in "ricer" forums...

LOL ricers

Here is a good site:
http://autolumination.com/

I retract such statement. Go to autolumination at your own risk. ;(
I say, if you can put in Lux 1's, then do it...

[modamag]

Alright I'll bit. I'm a "ricer".

Take a look at my 1st Luxeon mod --> Luxeon Dome/Map Light Upgrade.
It's more than bright enough

I made dropin replacement for Infiniti years back but don't have the time any more these days. You can easily do it yourself.

Don't bother with the ebay LED upgrade option. Specifically the blue ones, my friend bought his on ebay for $40. And I swear you can not see ANYTHING with them. I had to fire up my EDC to read a map.

[2xTrinity]

Originally Posted by GLOCKshooter

I would like to replace my map lights, dome lights, and door lights with LEDs. I have a 99 Chevy Tahoe. I searched and found a great DIY Tahoe thread, but I'm not up to speed on mods. I want to get drop in replacements. I see a lot of choices on e-bay (won't mention sites, I'm not spamming or pimpin'). A few questions before I buy:

1) Do I have to worry about resistors with interior lights? I know if you want to use exterior led signal indicators that can be a problem)

Most of these drop-in replacements will already have the appropriate current limiting resistors. Notice, this si not for the same reason as for the indicator. The problem with the indicator is that the car will check to see if the bulb is burned out by how much current it is drawing, so LEDs which are more efficient will look like burned out bulbs. Adding the resistor to "fix" this will cancel out any energy savings.

However, to simply run LEDs they do need a resistor (that only dissipates a small amount of energy, rather than the bulk of the energy) to drop the voltage from the 13.7 volts your alternator puts out, to ~12 volts to run sets of three LEDs in series at 4v each. This would already be built into a drop-in replacement, but from what I've heard, most of those use fairly poor quality LEDs. You'd be better off doing something yourself.

I've been toying with the idea of running a set of three CREE LEDs in series with a resistor at 3 watts each in my dome light to produce close to 500 lumens . Another thing that a guy I know did was replace the drivers-side map light with a red LED so that he can read maps while preserving his night vision. Interesting idea.

2) what color do I use for the best results behind the opaque lenses? Would it be better (or even possible) to replace the lenses?

You want to use the same color as is on the filter. Meaning if you have a red lens, use a red LED. The reason those appear red is that they block out every color of light except red, so by using the colored LED none of the color will be filtered out. This will greatly improve efficiency compared to using dozens of white tungsten bulbs where most of the light gets filtered away. Dozens of small auxiliary bulbs collectively add up to a lot of watts, enough to put noticable load on the alternator (I can easily sense the added load when switching the lights on). You won't pay for the LEDs with gas savings, but you will save a measurable amount, especially if you have a lot of stop and go traffic.

3) What is the brightest type available now? Cree?

THANKS!

I don't think any drop-in replacements using the Cree LEDs yet. That would be great though for the dome lights/map lights especially, which I find fairly dim. Also, I don't believe Cree sells sepearate colors -- so you won't be able to replacing those red and amber lights with those.

Specifically the blue ones, my friend bought his on ebay for $40. And I swear you can not see ANYTHING with them. I had to fire up my EDC to read a map.

Deep blue will only be good as a decorative look. The eye has very low sensitivity to that color. The same amount of power in a white LED would look much brighter, and be much more useful to read by.