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Cup holder LEDs. ALL 8 tabs + cheap LEDs

17K views 28 replies 13 participants last post by  EugeneCP 
#1 · (Edited)
Difficulty: 2/5
Build time: 30mins - a few hours, depending on prior knowledge.
What you need: LEDs, Adhesive spray, a 30 Amp switch, wire, a nail some screw drivers, and some common sense.

Ok first off I'm using these LEDs.



That's 100 blue LEDs, they're blue because my HUD and my head unit are blue as well, if you have an SI buy red obviously. They were 20 bucks on ebay. I would post the link but it will expire so here are some keywords for you.

"12v led" Works every time, then adjust your price range and refine your search and eventually you can find high amounts of LEDs for low amounts of cash. Before you do this DIY don't try to test the LEDs on 9v batteries, they are prewired with resistors so that only 12v batteries and higher can power them.

Ok so if you don't know how to get to your cup holders....
Take off the shift knob and the whole section that holds the boot. There are a few tabs holding it on, just pry around nothing too forceful.
(stole this pic)

After that unscrew these two bolts in your console
(stole this pic)

There are a few more bolts holding the console assembly on around the shifter area and some snap ons at the bottom. On the passenger side you have to remove the black piece under the glove box to get to the snap on. No your ready to pull out the console.

Take it out of your car and turn it upside down. Unscrew all the hex screws and take out the cup holder assembly. You will see that the tabs are easily removable. Take them out, they can go back in either way so it's mistake proof (basically).

Now here's my diagram.



1. Red triangles - Tab assemblies
2. Blue circles - Where to drill for LEDs
3. Red lines - Positive wires
4. Black lines - Ground (negative) wires
5. Purple squares - crimps (you can use wire nuts or whatever you want)
6. Red radiating box - Power source
7. Black box - Switch
8. Black circle - Ground
9. Big red circle - Fiery pit of death (avoid this)

Ok so drill holes for the LEDs then spray your Adhesive spray in to hole. Get a nail, yes a nail. Put the led into place and force it down as hard as you can by pushing on the bottom of the led itself, with a nail. It wont break. It should be in place pretty well, if not use super glue.

Once you have an LED in all 8 tabs, the fun part starts. Wiring.


Take all 4 red wires on one side and crimp them all together, make sure you have crimped them firmly. Do the same for the red wires on the other side. Repeat this step for all the black wires as well. You should have four crimps hanging there when this step is done, 2 with 4 black wires each and 2 with 4 red wires each.

Take a wire and crimp it to one of the red wire crimps, take another wire and crimp it to the other red wire crimp. Now you have 2 wires hanging there, crimp them both into one crimp.
Repeat this step for the black wires.

Now you need to have found a good place for your switch and drilled a hole for it. so it should be mounted wherever you want it before this next part.

Now you have just two crimps hanging there, one for a ground, and one for a power source. Crimp a wire into the red crimp, then tap into this yellow wire for your power source.



Now crimp a wire into your black crimp. This wire needs to go to the switch, then take another wire and attach it to the other terminal on the switch, (if you have three terminals on your switch, one is for the light on the switch, find out which terminal this is and ignore it) this wire needs to go to your ground, this could be anywhere you want basically. Just find a metal screw that is screwed into a metal surface, (not a painted surface) take out the screw, place your exposed wire so that when you put the screw back in, it will be squished in between the screw and the metal surface.

If you did it right, turn your car on ACC or on position (I'm not sure which powers the outlets) and flip your switch. If they don't turn on you wired it wrong or blew a fuse. I wired mine wrong the first time and had to re-crimp a few things, make sure when you crimp your wires they are exposed.

I don't know if you will pop a fuse or which to look for if you do, I tapped into a different wire. Just use your owners manual and see which fuse goes to your power outlets. Just replace it and if it keeps popping do the next bigger size fuse. Ex. From a7.5A to a 10A. You don't want to fool around with this too much cause you could risk burning up your wiring harness. So if you keep popping fuses I would suggest tapping into another wire.

Good luck guys, this is my finished product.



This DIY is plenty thorough for you guys, I did this on my own without a DIY in the first place and Im just 17. So just use some common sense if you get stumped, and you will eventually be able to do stuff like this without DIYs.
 
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#7 ·
That's fine ask away! I use crimp in this DIY as a noun and a verb.

The noun is the actual red thing in this picture that the wires go into, this connects them and makes a current so that electricity can flow through separate wires, using this as a connector.


The verb, To crimp, is the act of crushing the wires inside the crimp. The pic shows a pair of wire cutters, they usually come with a section specifically for crimping. You put the exposed wire into one side of the crimp, then squish the crimp together so that the wire is stuck in there, if you do this to both sides it will make an electric current go from one wire to the next, as if it's just one wire.
 
#11 ·
I only used 8, one for each tab. They came wired, you just have to get the red and black housing off the wire itself on the end so that you can crimp them properly. My wire cutters didn't have a wire stripping section small enough to do this, I had to bite it and hope i didn't sever the wire itself.
 
#13 ·
Tapping into a wire is cutting it at a certain place, stripping it, and crimping it back together, but when you crimp it back together, you want to include both the original wire, and the wire for the LEDs on one side of the crimp. The Yellow wire comes from your power outlet in your console. The LEDs go into the tabs in your cup holder, the triangle things that expand to hold your drinks, you drill holes in the bottom of each tab and insert the LED.
 
#15 ·
All your answers are in the DIY. Step by step. You turn them on and on with a switch, only Red goes into the tapped wire because it's Power, black is negative, it just needs to touch a metal surface constantly. I explain the switch in the DIY
 
#16 · (Edited)
Good DYI,...but i have some questions ...and concerns

hey nice DIY,
i have some questions tho,
so i got the shifter knob off, i removed the two screws inside the armrest, i removed the tray that is in front of the shifting knob, underneath there was a 4 screws that were also holding the "frame", afterwards i got rid of the the drivers and passenger side - clips towards the dashboard.
and i still couldn't get it off, it was stuck for some reason.
am i missing something?
(i wish there were a few more pictures of the actual un-hooking of the mid-console.)

Furthermore, as i was working for some reason my radio started acting up, turning itself on and off...so i turned off the car completely (because i needed it in the 2nd ignition position so i can move the shifter around to remove the tray in front of it)...when i tried to start the car back up, just to see if it would start it was making a weird noise (i cant even explain) but the dash didn't light up all the way - only a few things did like the ABS and a few other random things did (and when the did - only for a few seconds) and so the car wouldn't start. I would probably describe the noise as if the car was out of gas and the battery was almost dead.

Anyways, then i freaked out and put everything back together...the car started...
any suggestions as to what happened? because now im kinda scared to working on it again.

does the presence of the "shift lock release" in that structure could be causing this?

thanks
 
#18 ·
hey nice DIY,
i have some questions tho,
so i got the shifter knob off, i removed the two screws inside the armrest, i removed the tray that is in front of the shifting knob, underneath there was a 4 screws that were also holding the "frame", afterwards i got rid of the the drivers and passenger side - clips towards the dashboard.
and i still couldn't get it off, it was stuck for some reason.
am i missing something?
(i wish there were a few more pictures of the actual un-hooking of the mid-console.)

Furthermore, as i was working for some reason my radio started acting up, turning itself on and off...so i turned off the car completely (because i needed it in the 2nd ignition position so i can move the shifter around to remove the tray in front of it)...when i tried to start the car back up, just to see if it would start it was making a weird noise (i cant even explain) but the dash didn't light up all the way - only a few things did like the ABS and a few other random things did (and when the did - only for a few seconds) and so the car wouldn't start. I would probably describe the noise as if the car was out of gas and the battery was almost dead.

Anyways, then i freaked out and put everything back together...the car started...
any suggestions as to what happened? because now im kinda scared to working on it again.

does the presence of the "shift lock release" in that structure could be causing this?

thanks
You left the key in the on position too long. You killed your battery. You need to get some jumper cables and jump the car off. I don't know all the steps to removing the automatic console compared to mine. If you can wiggle the console around and try to pin point where it's still attached you can easily find your way to the getting everything undone. Good luck man.
 
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