Interior lighting?

Rook126 · November 30, 2020

1 hour ago, Rob Mugs said:

What kelvin were your bulbs? They look a little cooler than the maps?

Yeah Kodiakdenali’s do appear to have a cooler temp than the ones I used. I know that you can get these LED bulbs pretty cheap online at about a dollar a piece but after reading customer feedback of many, I chose to pay the premium price of $10 each for the Oznium brand. Decent reviews and they appear to be of higher quality than some of the others. I really hope they are because I don’t feel like switching them out if they ever fail. I have the 11mm cool white which are advertised as 12,000K but that may be an error with advertising. They are probably in the 5000K-6000K range of true white light. The 11mm is the diameter of the actual clear lens without the flange. Don’t get the smaller 6mm ones because they are very dim and don’t put out any real usable light. They are likely best as ambient light for dash pockets, foot wells or door handles.
Here’s a screenshot of the ones I ordered from Amazon.

kodiakdenali · November 30, 2020

11 hours ago, Rob Mugs said:

What kelvin were your bulbs? They look a little cooler than the maps?

They do look cooler than the map lights by a bit, the ones I used are advertised as 6500K. The lens on the map lights might "yellow" them a tad by comparison. Notice the Fresnel looking features on the stock lenses? Fresnel lenses are great for keeping a lens physically small while emulating the optics of a much larger lens. But in my experience they tend to lower the effective Kelvins of the light that passes though. plus at least in the one shot looking up at the map lights the camera was aimed right in the output path of the new lights, but not in the path of the map lights. they actually compliment each other pretty well.

Edited November 30, 2020 by kodiakdenali

kodiakdenali · November 30, 2020

9 hours ago, Rook126 said:

Yeah Kodiakdenali’s do appear to have a cooler temp than the ones I used. I know that you can get these LED bulbs pretty cheap online at about a dollar a piece but after reading customer feedback of many, I chose to pay the premium price of $10 each for the Oznium brand. Decent reviews and they appear to be of higher quality than some of the others. I really hope they are because I don’t feel like switching them out if they ever fail. I have the 11mm cool white which are advertised as 12,000K but that may be an error with advertising. They are probably in the 5000K-6000K range of true white light. The 11mm is the diameter of the actual clear lens without the flange. Don’t get the smaller 6mm ones because they are very dim and don’t put out any real usable light. They are likely best as ambient light for dash pockets, foot wells or door handles.
Here’s a screenshot of the ones I ordered from Amazon.

You really can't go wrong with the Oznium lights, I looked at those and considered them, I've used them in the past, they are definitely good products. for one thing the wire they use is much easier to work with. I think the ones I have looked to be about 28awg. plenty of copper for the application, but it's hard to work with by hand.

2020 SLT owner · December 7, 2020

Thanks for the lead on the Oznium 11 mm LED light. I do not have a skylight, sliding window or Homelink, so there was more places I could put the lights.
First thing is you need a long T10 driver to get at the two screw on the upper switch console. Mine barely made it.

As you see in the 1st picture I put the lights in the center of where the switches would be for the skylight. On the back of that panel face there is a short little plastic raised tab. I took pliers and took those off and drilled an 1/8 inch hole in the center of the tab.

Drilled out to 7/16 to fit the light

On the front of the main console plate I cut the area where the back of the light could fit and not hit plastic.

With the front cover plate, the wires fold back and come out the back hole where the Homelink unit goes.

A drilled hole and a self tapping sheet metal screw is for the ground (black wire)

The red wires go to the grey wire on the right connector. the upper left corner grey wire

Great lighting

This location for the lights shines straight down instead of toward the seats, what a difference

from the stock dim reading lights. Thanks for all that had posts on what they did. Makes an

easy install without too much research. At first I was going to put footwell lights too, but now

I am going to wait. These light the floor ok. Got two extra lights now.

Rook126 · December 7, 2020

Great job and write up to go along with it. I am certain others will follow. This was a useful modification and well worth the price of a couple LEDs. Thanks to Kodiakdenali.

kodiakdenali · December 7, 2020

I added some floor lighting as well. Floor lights don't really illuminate anything all that important to see, but having floor lights contributes to an overall well lit feeling to the interior. pics aren't the best, but they are the same bolts as overhead, 2 per side and an extra one in each of the storage pockets for good measure.

I'm not quite happy with the light spread, its not very even. I might replace the under dash section with some LED strips at some point which I think will give me a better quality pattern. The focusing lens creates a yellow band around the extremity of the light, a strip should eliminate that, but its a nice improvement as is for now.

ChriZ71 · December 16, 2020

Hardly an ideal solution, but I think for the times need a little extra light (or wife applying makeup) this should work well enough. Just put in an order. Will give to wife to give to me as a Christmas present.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07VZXKYXW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

mandrewbot3k · February 6, 2021

Alright I finally got around to ordering this thing and have no idea where the x1 connector is, nor where the best power supply is haha. I’m assuming we want a switched power source but then that seems like the door assist wouldn’t work. I’ve found constant power in the fuse box or I can use the trailer pigtail to come off of but looking for ignition source instead.

What did everyone else do exactly?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

kodiakdenali · February 7, 2021

10 hours ago, mandrewbot3k said:

Alright I finally got around to ordering this thing and have no idea where the x1 connector is, nor where the best power supply is haha. I’m assuming we want a switched power source but then that seems like the door assist wouldn’t work. I’ve found constant power in the fuse box or I can use the trailer pigtail to come off of but looking for ignition source instead.

What did everyone else do exactly?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

X1 is the first bcm connector. Its located on the drivers side wall under the dash. Look for a box with several large harnesses connected to it to the left of the brake pedal.

For power i used the drivers side fuse box location since its in the same place and easy to access.

mandrewbot3k · February 7, 2021

13 hours ago, kodiakdenali said:

X1 is the first bcm connector. Its located on the drivers side wall under the dash. Look for a box with several large harnesses connected to it to the left of the brake pedal.

For power i used the drivers side fuse box location since its in the same place and easy to access.

Thanks. I was able to find the other post on here and moved from the drivers side to passenger side for accessory power instead of battery. I’m thinking I’ll add a spdt relay that switches to battery power (NO) when the dome lights activate and then back to accessory power ( NC ).

I’ve seen a schematic that uses two relays but need to review that further as to why it needed two poles. I assume to protect the bcm signal but a diode should help there.

I didn’t like that the lights stayed on the whole time under battery power but I’d also prefer they came on with the door open. I need to dig and see how the amp steps activate. Might be a good play book for this.

mandrewbot3k · February 7, 2021

Just looked at how the amp steps are installed and they get the signal from the OBD port via a pass through connector. I’m thinking they use the door ajar signal not the dome light signal to grab that though.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

mandrewbot3k · February 16, 2021

After noodling with two SPDT relays, which does, I'll be changing to a DPDT to better control the swap between Door Assist and regular operation. Here is the circuit I'll be using:

One bummer about using this is that the BCM output for interior lights does not provide a signal when the dome lights are manually turned on, only with the door. Not a big deal.

Basically, the Electrolytic capacitor is there to keep the relay coil happy. You'll get a lot of chattering/buzzing from the PWM signal otherwise, which is just premature wear (and also a bit terrifying). You can probably use a bigger cap, but the 220uF is working fine with the SPDT I have in there now (except for door signal). There's a diode in there to protect the BCM from the capacitor discharge.

This is the circuit I currently am using, but it's a little overcomplicated when the DPDT package should function better with the isolated Door Assist output. As I mentioned, this bottom one still has issues with the Door Assist signal. A larger cap (1000uF) may work, but I opted to isolate the signal instead using the DPDT relay which is on it's way. An RC circuit may be necessary to smooth out the PWM signal with it, rather than just a bigger capacitor, but the thing was starting to become a pain to manage with tall the jumpers and connectors.

if you do try this, make sure you do not hook up the capacitors backwards as they will blow out the top if you short them out.

kodiakdenali · February 16, 2021

Not sure if the dome behaves differently on different trims but on mine the BCM output does not turn on if you turn on the map lights individually, but there is also a manual dome light button on the overhead console, that one turns on all of the map lights front and back, it does turn on the BCM output which activates the extra lights. I like it very much this way. if I really want light I can push that button, but if I just need to see but don't want super bright light I can push the individual lights which turn on that one light only. the passenger can still turn on their light to see something without turning all of the interior lights on which would be way too bright at night time with the addons...it actually works great!

mandrewbot3k · February 16, 2021

5 minutes ago, kodiakdenali said:

Not sure if the dome behaves differently on different trims but on mine the BCM output does not turn on if you turn on the map lights individually, but there is also a manual dome light button on the overhead console, that one turns on all of the map lights front and back, it does turn on the BCM output which activates the extra lights. I like it very much this way. if I really want light I can push that button, but if I just need to see but don't want super bright light I can push the individual lights which turn on that one light only. the passenger can still turn on their light to see something without turning all of the interior lights on which would be way too bright at night time with the addons...it actually works great!

You know I didn't try those other buttons, I was thinking they were just cutoffs, I'll have to give them a shot. Thanks for letting me know. The only reason I'd like it is so I can have a 100% brightness white light for Door Assist, and a subtle cool blue light for normal driving.

mandrewbot3k · February 16, 2021

17 minutes ago, mandrewbot3k said:

You know I didn't try those other buttons, I was thinking they were just cutoffs, I'll have to give them a shot. Thanks for letting me know. The only reason I'd like it is so I can have a 100% brightness white light for Door Assist, and a subtle cool blue light for normal driving.

Confirmed, the button on the overhead, right side turns all of them on and enables the door assist mode, with no dimming so it's a nice quick switch. Thanks! I tried uploading a video of the PWM dimming issue, but cant figure out how to get a video on here. haha.