Dome Light swap?

[DHaze83]

I have a 2018 LTZ Midnight. I wanna swap the existing LED dome lights to red LEDs. Has anyone accomplished this? If so, what LEDs did you use? 

[bc-chris]

i'm not sure if the '18 cabin lights are the same as my '14, but when i wanted to swap i took stuff apart and was stumped.  couldn't find anywhere that had a similar 'bulb' and then 'not white' on top of it all.

 

what i did was use a coloured 'gel' (like they use to change the colour of stage/production lights).  a friend of my in that industry gave me a bunch of blue gels so i cut some small pieces and just put the gel right over the existing bulbs to make them blue...

 

so stuff like this: coloured lighting gels

 

 

 

 

and this of course then meant that when i added floor lighting that i went with blue....

 

 

 

[Shakeydeal]

That's really cool!

 

Question. How do those affix? I would also like to try that with the rear plate lights.

 

Shakey

[DHaze83]

7 hours ago, bc-chris said:

i'm not sure if the '18 cabin lights are the same as my '14, but when i wanted to swap i took stuff apart and was stumped.  couldn't find anywhere that had a similar 'bulb' and then 'not white' on top of it all.

 

what i did was use a coloured 'gel' (like they use to change the colour of stage/production lights).  a friend of my in that industry gave me a bunch of blue gels so i cut some small pieces and just put the gel right over the existing bulbs to make them blue...

 

so stuff like this: coloured lighting gels

 

 

 

 

and this of course then meant that when i added floor lighting that i went with blue....

 

 

 

I was assuming that something like this might be the only option. How did you install this film? You cut small pieces and just tucked it in around the bulb? 

[flyingfool]

just order the red LEDS  it will look better, let us know when you find the part numbers as I also want red LEDS

[bc-chris]

i'm trying to remember becuz i did this a couple summers ago....

 

for the front lights i had to drop the over head console.  once it was down, pop the dome lights out, put a piece of the blue gel over the bulb and then snap the bulb back into place with the blue gel over the lens.  you can see it a bit in this pic....

 

 

 

for the rear lights, i popped the plastic cover off around the lights and just put a piece of the film over the holes the bulbs go thru and then snapped the cover back in place

(don't have a pic of the cover with with film, but here is the rear lights with the cover removed...

 

 

the clearance of the holes the bulbs go thru is minimal - so once you add the gel you really have to push to get stuff to snap back together - but it will work 

[flyingfool]

are they SMT LEDS, not replaceable

[bc-chris]

3 minutes ago, flyingfool said:

are they SMT LEDS, not replaceable

 

yes - they aren't just a bulb, they are definitely mounted

[DHaze83]

Did the inside of mine. Didnt go with the gels though. I went with the red transparent vinyl. Cut out little pieces and hit it with a heat gun and it conformed nicely around the bulb. 

 

Fyi...anyone trying to do this. Fronts bulbs are easy to get to. The cover over the rear set is an A$$hole. Dont just pull the trim piece, pull out the entire module if you dont wont broken tabs!!! There are 2 tabs on each side that you cant get to unless the whole module is out.

[Darksky]

Damn, that looks good. Very uniform pattern of light. Well Done, Sir.

[Biggerdogg01]

I installed blue led lights in the console and the back light. DHaze83 stated, the rear is a PIA to get out. On the front console, I drilled 3 small holes and installed 3 LED bulbs. I used the wires that controlled the lights when doors open and removed them from the white lights, which left the map lights still functional if needed, but they don't come on, just the blue LED's. For the rear, I purchased some small single LED chips and soldered them onto the light plate for the rear passenger light. 

[Sades]

How do you go about taking the front console off? 

[DHaze83]

14 minutes ago, Sades said:

How do you go about taking the front console off? 

Front console as in top roof where the dome lights are or front as in dash?

[DHaze83]

6 minutes ago, DHaze83 said:

Front console as in top roof where the dome lights are or front as in dash?

Im assuming top console where the dome lights are. 

Open the sunglass holder then just infront of that on the piece where your dome light on/off switch is, put your fingers on the lip of that plate just behind the sunglass holder and pull down. It pops of fairly easy with a slight amount of force. After that, look up into there and you will see 2 screws up in there. One on back left and one on back right. Remove those. After that you should feel it start to come loose. There are 2 retaining clips up front, one on each side that is holding it in. First time will take a little bit of force to pop out but they are metal clips so not a lot of worry about them breaking if you dont go MadMax on them. 

[Sades]

23 hours ago, DHaze83 said:

Im assuming top console where the dome lights are. 

Open the sunglass holder then just infront of that on the piece where your dome light on/off switch is, put your fingers on the lip of that plate just behind the sunglass holder and pull down. It pops of fairly easy with a slight amount of force. After that, look up into there and you will see 2 screws up in there. One on back left and one on back right. Remove those. After that you should feel it start to come loose. There are 2 retaining clips up front, one on each side that is holding it in. First time will take a little bit of force to pop out but they are metal clips so not a lot of worry about them breaking if you dont go MadMax on them. 

That worked! thank you, I just need to find what i need to do to change all lights red. Dome lights and such