Interior lighting?

[kodiakdenali]

the bottom of that piece, and right there on the PCB, there are your map lights with the lenses attached.

[kodiakdenali]

the circuit board is loose at this point, unplug the homelink wire and it can be removed. there is a rubber membrane panel below that which provides the springiness of the buttons and the contacts which touch the pads on the circuit board. be careful at this point! there are loose pieces which will fall out if you just turn it over, make sure not to lose anything.

[kodiakdenali]

from the back it is possible to use a small pry tool to release the rear sliding window switch, that and two silver screws on the front of the unit need to be removed then the inner bezel on the bottom of the console can be removed. the map light buttons and their lenses are also free at this point.

[kodiakdenali]

This is where I wanted to mount some LED flood lights. (sorry I had pictures to explain this, but I can't seem to post them now) but this plan was thwarted. behind that are the levers for the map lights. I actually thought that I could just drill through those also, the buttons would likely still work fine even with a hole through the arms, but I decided to look at other options. the main reason was while that would work pretty well for one side, the other side has the wire for the homelink in the way, that's the orange wrapped wire you see in the picture in the post above. I didn't want to mess with all of that.

 

...oh. and maybe the explanation ends here...as it seems I've hit a limit on how many pictures I can upload...will it allow me to add more posts tomorrow? I've got a lot more pictures I can post...including where I did end up putting a pair of LED bolts integrated into the console and the tremendous improvement in interior lighting that resulted...but it seems I'm at my picture limit.

Edited November 19, 2020 by kodiakdenali

[Arboc]

19 hours ago, kodiakdenali said:

depending on what's on the other side of the console of course.

That is no. 1

how  much current do your lights draw?

Don't know or care.

did you power them directly from the grey dome lights turn on wire in the harness

Yes

 

[kodiakdenali]

2 hours ago, Arboc said:

depending on what's on the other side of the console of course.

That is no. 1

how  much current do your lights draw?

Don't know or care.

did you power them directly from the grey dome lights turn on wire in the harness

Yes

Thanks for the information!

Do be careful though connecting electronics to factory circuits if you don't know or care how much current they draw . Depending on what circuit it is you could overload it, blow fuses, damage equipment, or start a fire. Please be safe while modding!

[kodiakdenali]

hey, it works...

first picture is where I was looking to put some extra lights, second picture is what's behind that part. looks good, but unfortunately that's where the pivot arms are for the map lights.

possible to drill through those arms and still have them work, but further the best location would have been pushed towards that "ridge" on the face bezel, so the light wouldn't look right there, so then I started eyeing this other corner shown in the 3rd picture. this is to the left and right of the strip of controls for onstar and the passenger's airbag, on the forward part of the upper console.

[kodiakdenali]

this angle points the lights such that they flood the front seats and center console area with light, they are aimed backwards and inwards slightly.

[kodiakdenali]

They do cast a bit of their light towards your eyes while sitting in the seat, but they do not come on with the map lights, only the "dome lights" so you can still manually turn on the left or right map light independently of these, making it safe for driving. the brightest portion of the output is aimed below your eyes, though, they aren't too bright. You can see the cutoff for where the focused area of light ends about 3/4 of the way up the seat back, so below your eyes. there is some incidental glare above that, but the brightest light goes right where you want it, and not where you don't.

for power I tapped into the grey wire which is the dome lights command wire from the BCM (tapped at the overhead console harness) each light draws about 150mA or so, and that seems to be well within that circuit's capabilities.

end result is amazing! cool white light, and tons of it right where I want it. the factory lights look so dim by comparison. The original map lights still provide lighting to the doors and out of the door when open, so they compliment each other very well.

sorry for the poor quality of the smartphone pics, I haven't had a chance to get the DSLR out...

hopefully I can add a pair to the rear map lights module as well, and then to add some floor lighting and I'll be in business.

Edited November 19, 2020 by kodiakdenali

[Rob Mugs]

Heck... I just want to take the lenses off so they are directed downwards instead of off to the side

[kodiakdenali]

2 hours ago, Rob Mugs said:

Heck... I just want to take the lenses off so they are directed downwards instead of off to the side

You can try, but I'm not sure if is that simple. you can see in the picture I posted earlier what the underside of the map light lenses looks like there is only a small oval shaped hole where the light shines through, aimed there by those focusing lenses. I'm not sure if the LEDs themselves are actually situated so that they would shine through those openings without the lenses which aim the light at a nearly 45 degree angle to the side. If you deleted the lenses you might end up with much dimmer light as 75% plus of the LED output ends up inside the upper console with only a small portion of it actually shining through the openings.

I can't really tell how those lenses are attached to the PCB, its probably glued or has plastic tabs that are melted to hold it on. you may have to cut off which would make it difficult to replace if it doesn't end up working out...but if you're feeling brave, or have $160 to spare if it goes horribly wrong, give it a try...I'd be interested to know what the results are!

[Rob Mugs]

3 hours ago, kodiakdenali said:

You can try, but I'm not sure if is that simple. you can see in the picture I posted earlier what the underside of the map light lenses looks like there is only a small oval shaped hole where the light shines through, aimed there by those focusing lenses. I'm not sure if the LEDs themselves are actually situated so that they would shine through those openings without the lenses which aim the light at a nearly 45 degree angle to the side. If you deleted the lenses you might end up with much dimmer light as 75% plus of the LED output ends up inside the upper console with only a small portion of it actually shining through the openings.

I can't really tell how those lenses are attached to the PCB, its probably glued or has plastic tabs that are melted to hold it on. you may have to cut off which would make it difficult to replace if it doesn't end up working out...but if you're feeling brave, or have $160 to spare if it goes horribly wrong, give it a try...I'd be interested to know what the results are!

While pictures are worth 1,000 words, taking it apart myself is worth a cool mill.  Need to get a better idea of all of the geometry 

[Rook126]

On 11/18/2020 at 11:03 PM, kodiakdenali said:

I will likely have to do this in a few posts due to pictures, but here you go!

 

the youtube video posted is a good description of how to get the overhead console down. just be careful with it.

then step 1, verify that you can buy replacements for this part if everything goes horribly wrong! its about $160 on GMPartsDirect.

 

Thank you kodiakdenali for posting your upgrade. I got some similar LEDs in the mail today and completed the upgrade too (based on your instructions). Pretty simple as long as you have the correct Torx bit. I also tapped the gray wire for power and grounded to the support brace this panel mounts to. The additional illumination is just what I wanted. The factory map lights were dim and mostly aimed at the seats or your lap area. You couldn't see anything on or in the center console too well. Now I see all over and my passenger can actually read with it. I like that they are controlled independently by the dome light switch and also illuminate when you unlock the truck or first enter it. They auto fade or turn off after a few seconds as the map lights do.

[kodiakdenali]

great work! looks very nice. its amazing how much better some little inexpensive LEDs can be than what we have stock. I like yours better than mine even, I had a different style that would fit more flush but their bezels were larger so I decided to go with the ones I did. I've seen some just like yours before also, some day I may swap them out, but I told myself the extra aluminum on mine would just help dissipate heat :-).

I've already taken the rear assembly apart to add a pair to that also which will really complete the look. in the back though I'm going ot have to disassemble the LED bolts and modify them. there is a perfect place between the rear map lights for a set of LEDs, but there is a circuit board behind them so the bolts need to be shorter for clearance. I think I will solder directly to the board for the rear, that assembly is only about $30.

[Rob Mugs]

On 11/25/2020 at 8:24 PM, kodiakdenali said:

great work! looks very nice. its amazing how much better some little inexpensive LEDs can be than what we have stock. I like yours better than mine even, I had a different style that would fit more flush but their bezels were larger so I decided to go with the ones I did. I've seen some just like yours before also, some day I may swap them out, but I told myself the extra aluminum on mine would just help dissipate heat :-).

I've already taken the rear assembly apart to add a pair to that also which will really complete the look. in the back though I'm going ot have to disassemble the LED bolts and modify them. there is a perfect place between the rear map lights for a set of LEDs, but there is a circuit board behind them so the bolts need to be shorter for clearance. I think I will solder directly to the board for the rear, that assembly is only about $30.

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