mike_1103

Folks,

I've ordered a few pairs of LED from corvettemods1 and installed them inside the Vette tonight.

Good price and fast shipping to Canada by the way.

I changed the Map lights and the Footwell lights.

Here's what it looked like before:



... and after:



The Footwell lights were a breeze to change, but the Map lights were a pain in the ....

I finally was able to pull them out by using a small Tie wrap tightly wrapped against the bulb and pulling hard. I felt like a dentist trying to remove a tooth!

The only minor issue I have is that the Map lights stay very dimly lit, even after the light come off inside the car. This is a picture shot after the door was closed for more than 3 minutes:



Anyone had problems with their battery draining out after doing this mod?

Mike.

tom3257

I just checked mine and they are doing the same thing...Hmmm, what to do.....

danl72

I think that was the issue with the led's. Sorry I do not have the answer.

'VETTE PHASE

The only way to fix it is to add some load to the circuit. You can wire a bulb in and hide it or use a resistor.

tom3257

On a prior thread someone mentioned leaving some of the bulbs in the circuit, so I did. I didn't change my glove box bulbs. I'm still having the problem....

SinisterC6

im the guy who said put one origional bulb in place, i made my own led arrays and had this issue last year. however if you pull the passanger footwell (pull down it has push pins) and wire in 1 original bulb in parallel you'll find the issue disappears instantly. the reason is the car doesnt realize any lights are on cause of the low draw of the leds, its not the type you bought, weather you paid 30c or 30$ per led the fact remains that installing an led will do this.

fix procedure:

1. get down on the ground on the passenger side, if you feel under the glove compartment you will feel a total of 3 pins, 2 in front 1 in back.

2. grab the edges closest to these pins and pull down (pulling near the pins will ensure you dont crack the plastic, its not breakable but you dont want to risk it.

3. with the panel down you will see a black wrapped wire, peel back the wrapping and you will see an orange (positive) and white (neg) wire. cut these wires though not at the same time to ensure no shorts occur.

4. find an old 194 bulbs and solder 2 wires to it's terminals, place the bulbs and wires in something designed for high heat, i used a coupler from a coolant flush kit, wrapped in pot holder and duct tape. making sure you have plenty of wire available. put the wires from the bulb and the wires from your footwell bulb together. incadesent bulbs arent polarity sensitive so you cant do this wrong

5. reconnect the white and orange wires from the car to the white and orange wires from the led/ wrapped bulb. open your door and wait 20 minutes, stay near the car and make sure you dont smell anything burning, the bulb will get hot but if you wrapped it good it should only become warm to the touch (this is safe, ive had my doors open for 2 hours while detailing with never a scent of burning)

6. if your satisfied then put it all back together and congradulate yourself for having an led equipped vette retaining normal light function




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let me know if that helped

mike_1103

Thanks for the writeup SinisterC6.

I did check again and, after close to 24 hours standing still, the Map Lights still glow. However, they are barely noticeable, it gives a nice glow inside the car, and it certainly won't impair night driving.

The car is attached to a trickle charger since it is stored for the winter. Tonight, when I checked, the charger's light was green, meaning that the battery was fully charged.

I now doubt the LEDs will ever drain the battery so I will leave them as is for now and just enjoy the new look!

I'll keep the writeup handy if I change my mind.

Regards,

Mike.

vette-oholic

whats the reasons for this mod?

i know trad. bulbs can burn out, but thats pretty rare...

does this just makes the car look cooler?

mike_1103

In my opinion, yes.

This is a matter of personal taste, but you can compare the two pics in my first post of this thread and judge for yourself.

Mike.

jrpedraza

I installed these same bulbs on mine and have the same 'problem'; they remain faintly glowing but I have not had any trouble in the last eight months or so that I've had them installed. I have left it parked for up to three weeks at a time with no batter drain at all. One of these days I'll get around to installing a 'load' but until then I doubt my battery will run down.

JR

SinisterC6

the draw is minimal, basically you can have 50 led bulbs (the ones you have are an array of 4-8) that draw less current than 1 194 incandescent bulb so i mean if you dont mind the glow your fine bro, glad you like the mod.

vette-oholic - the reason we change the bulbs is the same if we change the exhaust, cam suspension - to make the car our own. i didnt like the look of the green buttons so i spent a lot of time and a little money making my car my own:

NEV3R L8

I see this same old post time after time and IMO its not true. I bought mine from a different vendor. Someone who only does LEDs and they all come with resistors.

I've never had an issues with them "glowing".

NIGHTSTALKER

Mike, I'm glad you posted. I was going to recommend he contact you.....When I think of LED interiors, your car comes to mind first......Shoot me a PM when you get a second and let me know where you stand with your car. Ed really wants to do your car......I'm working on getting those vids of my car for you.....The weather has just been so bad here lately. We need to get your car down to B&P!!!!!

SinisterC6

if theyre not thats really good then, all i meant by what i said is that the expense replacement bulbs are constructed out of individual leds that you can buy for .30$ or less. mine didnt glow as much as the picture but i wanted it to remain stock functionality.

btw the resistors you mentioned are not to eliminate the problem, they are required to limit current flow to the leds to keep them in the required 2.7-3.7 voltage drop range

'VETTE PHASE

The resistors aren't the problem. All LEDs have to have a resistor to run off of 12 volts. An LED only needs 1.5 to 4.5 volts and only uses about 10-20 mA of current. The resistor connects to the positive lead of the LED and drops the voltage to a usable level for the LED to operate.

The faint glow is just an inherent problem with LEDs since it takes very little current to make them light up. Basically the dimmer circuit is not designed for LEDs and doesn't cut the voltage completely to 0v. It may only dim down to .1%, which doesn't matter with incandescents, but there is still enough current flow to dimly light an LED.

sager303

I am soooo glad I found this thread. I changed my under hood light to LEDs, and they dim but never shut off. It has been driving me nuts for weeks.