DIY Ambient LED Repacement 7th gen accord

[my1staccord]

The install was pretty easy, the only problem that I had was soldering (I melted some plastic, and putting the bulb back into its holder it is a tight fit.) Tools needed: Soldering gun, solder, flat bladed screwdriver or other flat metal item used to pry, sharp tool to remove LED from Housing and needle nose pliers.

1. Get a thin metal edge to pry off the outside plastic piece that is over the LED. I used a money clip.
2. There are four clips that hold the Black plastic piece in place. This piece seems to hold the Circuit board in place. Unhook the four clips and lower the Black holder out.
3. The circuit board that the LED is powered by should now be loose. The LED is not wired in but works by contacts that are soldered in that touch the circuit board.
4. Rotate the LED light and housing to remove it from the circuit board.
5. Gently take out the LED from its plastic housing and use a solder gun to remove the two prong contacts that are attached. I think I used a sharp hooked tool that came from a Craftsman screw driver set to remove the LED from its housing.
6. Take your new LED and solder on the contacts that you removed from the original LED.
7. touch the contacts to the circuit board to make sure that the LED is working. Please note that I believe that there is a positive and negative side so if it doesn’t work turn the bulb around. Also make sure that the lights are on, there is no power to the LED when the lights are off.
8. push the LED back into the housing with care. It is a tight fit, so you have to try to get it in and grab it from the other side with needle nose pliers. Make sure you have the postive and negative on the right sides.
9. rotate the housing and LED into place.
10. put the circuit board back, snap the black plastic piece over the circuit board and snap the outside plastic cover back into place.

I am by no means an electrical type person, I am not even that good at soldering. Yet I was able to do this job. It doesn’t take a tech to do this just some patience and common sense. I hope that these instructions along with some pictures might be helpful. Feel free to post any questions; I will be checking them at work until Monday June 14. Then I will be out of the country until the beginning of July. It really is not that difficult. I just ran into some small problems that I was able to fix as I went along.

[my1staccord]

pic for step 2

[my1staccord]

pic 3

[my1staccord]

pic 4

[my1staccord]

led and housing removed so you can see the contacts on the back of the circuit board.

[my1staccord]

This is the LED in its housing. I couldnt take an upclose pic to show the contacts taht you have to remove and replace sorry

[uvman]

Where did you get the LED? Radio shack? What are the specs on the led?

[my1staccord]

The LEDs came in a four pack from Circuit City. They Cost $14.99

[my1staccord]

I dont see any specs on it, there was a resistor but that came off and it was not able to be soldered back on. It seems to work fine though. Below is a fuzzy close up of the LED by itself, you have to strip off any wire that is on it you want to have two posts coming out of the light.

[anysia]

anyone want to volunteer to come help me do this one? :D

[my1staccord]

if you were a little closer then 10 hours drive away, then I could help you....it really was not too bad. Just make sure that you have a small soldering iron, and try not to melt too much plastic with it like I did!

The outside plastic cover was a little tough to get back in. It gave me a hard time snapping in on the passanger side, but I was able to push it into place with a small tool that looks like a screwdriver but has a little hook on the end that I got in a kit at sears.

good luck, and sorry you dont live closer :)

[anysia]

maybe if i ever visit my brother in connecticut!! i wouldn't be too far away then! ;)

i want to do it, i just feel like i need someone to watch over me and make sure i do everything right! i'm too afraid i'll screw something up since i've never done anything like it before! :rolleyes:

[dougm]

Replacing my "ambiance light" seemed like a cool idea. I wasn't real thrilled with the yellow LED Honda installed. Didn't seem to do much more than light up the gear shift a bit. The one thing in the car I never have trouble finding and don't need to see to use... I was hoping to shed a little more light on the cup holder area and blue seemed like a more logical color, so I went to an electronics store and picked up a simple blue LED. I followed the instructions above, right up until I got the circuit board dangling. As I turned it to remove the yellow LED the flexible plastic wiring harness snapped and I ended up with the board in my hand. More about this later.

First, the LED I chose was a little large for the holder and it took a considerable amount of futzing around to get the old LED out and the new one in. The stock LED is in a black sheath that is not attached to the LED holder. I ended up removing the LED and sheath along with the metal prongs that are attached to the LED wires. This made it easier to unsolder and eliminated the melting plastic. It did not make it easier to get back together. I tossed the sheath and had to cram the prongs back into the holder with long nose pliers. Somewhat frustrating, but I don't know how my1staccord did it any other way.

Second, I wasn't about to try and do this twice so I wanted to make sure I had the LED wired the right way. This turned out to be simple: The cathode or + side of the LED is usually longer than the anode or - side. On the circuit board, you can see a very small protruding rectangle in the path of one side of the circuit to the LED. This is the resister and it has to be on the + side of the circuit so... the + side of the LED points toward the edge of the circuit board while the - side points into the center of the board. Position the LED accordingly so that it's cathode ends up on the connection that's on the side closest to the edge of the circuit board.

Third, once I was finished and the LED was re-seated on the board, I spent a good 15 minutes trying to snap everything back together. After saying "darn" a couple of times (and teaching my 6 y/o some new vocabulary words), I threw in the towel and took the whole sun-glass holder, light assembly down and out of the car. It was then that I realized, this process is taking the whole assembly apart backwards. It's meant to come out from the top rather than down from the bottom. Everything unsnaps much more easily, in fact, from the top, you can see the tabs that are holding the unit in place and can use a small flat-head screw driver to move the tabs and free the assembly. Then you can see the next level of tabs that holds the black case together... Much easier. My advice to anyone trying to do this is to take the whole sun-glasses assembly down and out. Look in the directions for the auto-dim mirror for good instructions on removing the whole thing.

The flexible connector: As soon as I heard the "snap" I knew what had happened. Sometimes these connectors will forgive a little twisting and sometimes they won't. Mine came completely off the circuit board. I have no idea how these are attached at the factory, probably some type of heat pressure machine, but I knew I didn't have the right equipment at home so... I lightly tinned the connections on the board, applied copious amounts of flux and held my soldering iron on top of each connection in the plastic connector until it melted the solder underneath enough to stick. I don't know if this will hold through a Texas summer, but we'll see. So far so good. There obviously wasn't much holding it before.

Overall this was more work than I envisioned, but works great! The blue LED I chose is a bit brighter than the yellow one and I managed to aim it slightly more toward the cup holders. Due to the lack of the sheath that was on the yellow LED, there's a little blue light showing around the edges of the assembly, but a small piece of electrical tape around the LED would take care of that.

[EXLNavi]

Good job. However, $14.99 seems a bit expensive for 4 LED's.

Then again if you were to order from digikey or mouser you'd have to pay shipping.

How is the ambient lighting now? Is it distracting at all?

[dougm]

$14.99 is a little high, but it looks like the ones my1staccord bought were made for automotive lighting and included resistors and wiring. I bought the raw LEDs and paid around $3.00 for 2.
How is the ambient lighting now? Is it distracting at all?
It looks great! I haven't had a chance to do any real driving with it. In the test drive I took it was real distracting - I kept looking at it and thinking "dang, that looks great!" :biggrin:

Doug M.

[dougm]

Quick update: I drove with the blue LED for a few weeks and decided that I didn't like it. It began to look as out of place as the yellow did and it was too bright. SO, a glutton for punishment, I replaced it with a slightly less bright white LED. MUCH BETTER! It matches all the gauge and radio display lighting and looks like it belongs.

Doug M.

[DVation]

For what it's worth, I just said screw it and went to radio shack and picked up a blue LED and just soldered it in place of the current one. I actually had to pull the LED out of the plastic holder it's in, then removed the two metal side pieces that touch the circuit board with some wire cutters. I snipped the new LED to the same length, resoldered the metal side pieces...put it all back together and it works great.

[avexnsx]

nicely done... similar to what i did with my moon/sunroof button..

http://www.driveaccord.net/forums/showpost.php?p=80601&postcount=5

[MegaloRESX]

I wanted to make my instrument panel(speedometer,tchmetter,etc) bright like LED...but i guess i should do some searching

[JSM]

I wanted to make my instrument panel(speedometer,tchmetter,etc) bright like LED...but i guess i should do some searching

Try the following site, it has instructions for leds all around the interior

http://www.ledautomotive.com/HowToGuides/

[ftgibson]

So does anyone know the size of these bulbs, or all of them in the dash for that matter. I really dont ahve the time to take the dash apart twice trying to figure out what these things are. I barely have the time to do the LED conversion, but I'll manage. Actaully what would be of more help is the size of the LEDs and the resistor that one would use. If anyone around the Boston area is looking to do the same LED conversion maybe we could help each other out.

.1st post. I popped my cherry.

[2006Accord]

We need some nightime "action" pics. :naughty:

[stiller fan]

So does anyone know the size of these bulbs, or all of them in the dash for that matter. I really dont ahve the time to take the dash apart twice trying to figure out what these things are. I barely have the time to do the LED conversion, but I'll manage. Actaully what would be of more help is the size of the LEDs and the resistor that one would use. If anyone around the Boston area is looking to do the same LED conversion maybe we could help each other out.

.1st post. I popped my cherry.

was it good for you???? :lmao: :nuts:

welcome aboard.... :wave:

[magbarn]

So does anyone know the size of these bulbs, or all of them in the dash for that matter. I really dont ahve the time to take the dash apart twice trying to figure out what these things are. I barely have the time to do the LED conversion, but I'll manage. Actaully what would be of more help is the size of the LEDs and the resistor that one would use. If anyone around the Boston area is looking to do the same LED conversion maybe we could help each other out.

.1st post. I popped my cherry.

I just did mine with a white LED from the "rat Shack" You don't need a resistor as the circuit board already has one. I check the voltage on mine it came out to around 2.5V so directly plugging in a LED shouldn't be a problem I did mine without using solder. I clipped off the wires coming off the stock LED and dissassembled the housing. I then bent the LED wired to the same shape as the previous connector and then plugged it in. The + terminal is clearly marked on the circuit board so it should be easy to align with the LED. I'll take some pics tonight. The white LED seems to be the perfect color for my coupe's interior.

BTW it's a 5mm white LED. U could use a 3mm led if you wanted to though.