LED questions

Hey guys. I haven't posted much in this forum, but I have a few idea's on what to do with some LED's and I would like yall's input on how this would work.

First of all, if you check the second page of my cardomain page, you can see the custom speakger grills that I made for my doors. Unfortunately, while they look pretty tight, they is a unsightly bit of metal behind each one. What I want to do is cover that area with black vinyl and add a blue LED or two behind there.

My current plan is to wire a relay so that it is triggered when my amp turns on, power connected to the amp as well, grounded of course, and then run 4 wires off it to connect to each LED (4 doors, 4 grilles, 4 LED's). Then I would need a place to ground the LED (which I would wire in series with the resistor, resistor coming first on the power wire, right?). Any thoughts?


My next thought is to put a blue LED on the underside of the subwoofer grilles for my subs. I am ordering 2 infinity kappa perfects and I think some blue LED light would make those white aluminum beauties shine . I would power those LED's probably off the same relay, maybe a different one. I would run the wires under the metal of the grilles. Haven't gotten the grilles yet, but again where could I ground the LED?


And finally I am for sure going to do the LED mod with the over head lights and door lights. But I can't seem to find how to pop that plastic cover off the dome light. I have a 95 explorer, how do you do that (afraid of cracking it). Thanks guys!

 

[Alec]

1) the resistor should be before the LED.
2) you can ground them almost anywhere, or since you're already running one wire to each grille go ahead and run 2. Then splice all the grounds together and go to a good floorpan ground.
3) you can run them all off the same relay, they barely use any power.

 

[icu400]

Hrm, that sounds good.

What are the prices at radio shack for LED's? I should only need 4-8 for the grilles, 2-4 for the sub grilles, and call it 8 for the dome, 2 for door light, and like 1-2 for each map light. So maybe like 20-25ish. 5-6 bucks at radio shack, plus 5-6 for resistors? I hope so.

And finally, any idea how to get that dome off, not to mention the map light covers

thanks

 

['96Xploder]

Whatever you do, don't buy your LED's from radioshack. They charge far too much, check around on ebay (maybe look at the seller's people here have had luck with). I picked up 50 blue LED's from a seller in hong kong for under 10 bucks shipped. I believe some seller's are even including resistors in the auction. Radio shack on the other hand charges a couple bucks a piece for LED's, plus resistors. And you probably won't find more than three of four of what you're looking for in their drawers 'o crap, either. Save yourself the hassle.