[cmv]

Car is an 06 EX coupe, NHBP, with light tan interior. Nothing very original here - just following what others have done. Special thanks to:

XTV-Sidecar
PeliROJO
Kicker Jace
Tiznonay
Jgams
& many others for the DIYs and/or pics. I'd have never thought to do this stuff if I hadn't seen it here.

I used 9-LED festoons for the dome & both map lights and the Electropods motorcycle kit many others have used. I hard-wired the Electropod setup - no switch - for a cleaner install. Tapped into the light blue & pink wires described in the DIYs, so they come on & fade out with the interior lights. However, turning on the dome or map lights does not make the electropods light up. Works exactly the way I wanted. The Electropods kit came with 6 "pods" and 2 bars. The bars are strips of 6 LEDS in a row & the pods are wired together as pairs of 2 pods. I used one set of pods (2 pods that are wired to each other) for each front footwell and one bar under the rear of each front seat. I had one set of pods left over.

For the license plate lights, I used white LEDs. 2 different ones - wanted to compare & choose best one, but will probably leave mismatched pair in place.

Part sources & price list:

• 
  9-LED blue festoon bulb
  Superbright LEDs part# 3022-B9
  $3.45 (times 3)

• 
  1-LED white 194/168 wedge
  Superbright LEDs part# WLED-WHP
  $4.95

• 
  6-LED cool white 194/168 wedge
  Superbright LEDs part# WLED-W6
  $3.74

• 
  StreetFX Electropods blue oval motorcycle kit
  From eBay seller americanclassicmotors
  $48.99 shipped

• 
  Superbright LEDs shipping fee
  $5

Total $73.03

Pics below. The blue lights are VERY bright. Almost too much. The hotspots you see in the pics aren't there in real life. Camera insisted on such a slow shutter & I didn't feel like messing with it all night. The light glows pretty evenly and doesn't have those harsh concentrations like in my pics.

The license plate lights are one of each part number listed above. Not much difference between them, so you could save $1.20 & go with the 6-LED bulb vs the "high power" LED. In my pics, the 6-LED bulb is on the left & the 1-LED is on the right. The specs are WLED-W6 - 9,300 mcd (brightness) & 9600°K (color), WLED-WHP 54,000 mcd & 4500°K. The bulb on the right illuminates the plate a little more, but either one is significantly whiter and brighter than stock.

 

[ameuba10]

niiice

 

[jynxlee317]

always wanted the blue courtesy lights installed, but apparently i suck with electronics.... do you think auto shops does courtesy lights as good as those?

 

[cmv]

always wanted the blue courtesy lights installed, but apparently i suck with electronics.... do you think auto shops does courtesy lights as good as those?

It is soooo easy, just DIY! :thumb:

Really, it isn't hard & it isn't expensive. Might take you an hour. If you only wanted to do the front footwells, it would probably take 15 min start to finish. The only time-consuming part was fishing the wire under the carpet under the front seats for the rear lights. & that didn't really take long to do - just took me a little while to plan out how I wanted to do it.

Instead of the (in?)famous T-Taps, I used 3M brand quick connects (available at Wally World) to tap into the coutesy light circuit. Those gave a cleaner, quicker, & easier install. For a non-switched install, this is really simple to do.

Or get a similar thing cheaper at Radio Shack

All you do is:

1. Mount your lights wherever you want them (test with provided 12v battery in kit first just to be sure they work - mine all did. This also gives you a good feel for how much light they put off)
2. Run your wires - you'll have to extend some.
3. Take up slack - make sure to leave a little under the seats to accomodate them sliding all the way back.
4. Strip & twist all positive leads toghether, then do same for negative.
5. Use a quick connect & lenght of wire & tap the light blue* lead under fuse box. This will be your positive lead.
6. Use a quick connect & lenght of wire & tap the pink* wire that is right next to the light blue one you just tapped. This will be your negative lead.
7. Grab your multimeter & verify your leads are positive/negative and that your connections are good. You'll have to hit the switch on the door jamb or close & reopen your door to trigger the courtesy lights again.
8. Connect your tapped leads to your wires from step 4.
9. Zip tie/secure wires as necessary. Neaten up install anywhere needed.
10. Snap trim pieces back in place if necessary.
* This was the right color combination for my 06 EX coupe - your car may be different

The only trim pieces I had to remove was at the door sills. I followed PeliROJO's excellent DIY mostly, but found it was easy to cleanly route the wires without taking any dash pieces off.

You could also split the cost of this project with a friend. It would be easy to do 2 cars with 1 set of electropods & you'd probably have just the right amount of light.

Again, my lights aren't switched. I can't opt to turn them off & I can't turn them on at will (w/o opening a door, removing key, hitting unlock on key fob - i.e whatever triggers your interior lights normally). They just come on & go off like the stock lights did - which is how i wanted them to work. However, adding a switch into the mix is simple enough & one is provided in your electropods kit.

 

[SiConvert887]

very nice looking :thumb:, I hope to do the same for my car but in red.

 

[KEVtec]

what type of bulb did you order for your license plate led? thanks.

 

[cmv]

what type of bulb did you order for your license plate led? thanks.

* 1-LED white 194/168 wedge
Superbright LEDs part# WLED-WHP
$4.95

* 6-LED cool white 194/168 wedge
Superbright LEDs part# WLED-W6
$3.74

from parts list in 1st post.