Thread: More Lighted Cupholders! (04+)

Originally Posted by Confusingboat

I'll take some pics of me removing it for you when I take it out again to install the new and improved LEDs. For what it's worth, the clips are in the same spot you take the bolts out of, so pull on those areas (there are 2 in the front and 2 in the back). Also, you have to pull it out because there's a little notch in the front of it that hooks around some cylindrical knob.

Sweet, pics would rock. You may have given me enough info already for a third try. I know the exact knob you’re talking about, if it’s the one just under the dash area. Man I spent so much time looking at my center console it’s embarrassing.

FYI when I go back in, I plan on adding a 12V socket. On my car neither one is in a good spot for my GPS so I’m going to add one on the passenger side of the console. I haven’t noticed any one talk about that here so I just thought I’d throw that out for an idea.

Sounds pretty nifty, I smell a write-up? I plan on doing one for the USB power port I'm going to add to easily charge my phone on the go.

USB power port? Another 12v socket? I'm loving those ideas!

Also..I'm knew to all the electrical/wiring and stuff, and was wondering how the switch gets wired into the circuit?

I also think I'm only going to do 4 for each cupholder.

When I look at the circuit it would be

+12v +led-+led-+led-+led-resistor---ground (too lazy to get the picture haha)

Is it just at the end of the circuit on the positive/negative side? or what? I mean, if I had to guess without any knowledge I'd think it would go between the last led and the ground?

Actually there would only be two LEDs in series per resistor (or set of resistors to equal the same resistance), but there would be two series in a parallel array (2x2). Basically you just take the image from the write-up and disregard two of the LED series. And I don't think it really matters which end you put the switch on, I put mine on the +12v end.

Well I finally got the breadboard and RGB LEDs from Hong Kong lol, I'll be redoing my cupholders and updating/finishing the write-up with more pics within the next few days.

Sweet, hurry up. I was planning on doing mine this weekend.

Updated with some pictures, I'll put up a bunch more after I get home from work, or maybe after I finish installing the RGB LEDs (this setup is going to be so crazy lol).

And Scal the switch goes in the positive feed wire before it hits the LED arrays.

Switch goes power wire ----{prong of switch }other prong----------leds.

Originally Posted by Scal24

Is there a reason there's 2 holes in the one prong and 1 in the other.

Nah doesn't matter. It's just a standard single pull single throw switch

For anyone still interested in this BS, I just completed the write-up after a couple months of lazing about. Cheers!
Also, I redid all the LEDs with RGB LEDs with 3x 8-switch panels so each LED (mirrored in the second cupholder) can be its own color, with red, green and blue switchable for each LED. This will not be covered in the tutorial.

Here's mine. I used 3 u/v leds. Although this was a test picture only one led was lit.

I have the frosted plexi and I have since then further frosted it more than it shows here.


That's a lot of light you have there. The picture you have looks bright; good thing they dim. Looks good though!

Once you get to the lower frequency colors like red you pretty much need 8 LEDs per cupholder or it doesn't really flood the light very much. The UV looks pretty cool btw.

Originally Posted by Confusingboat

Once you get to the lower frequency colors like red you pretty much need 8 LEDs per cupholder or it doesn't really flood the light very much. The UV looks pretty cool btw.

This is with only 1 red led and it does pretty good with lighting up the bottle....

Originally Posted by csssaint12

This is with only 1 red led and it does pretty good with lighting up the bottle....

I wish I could take a picture of mine right now to show you the difference. My camera, she is broken! But I suppose if you just want to light up the bottle one LED will suffice. I personally prefer mine to look like a radiating alien artifact lol to each his own.

Originally Posted by Confusingboat

I wish I could take a picture of mine right now to show you the difference. My camera, she is broken! But I suppose if you just want to light up the bottle one LED will suffice. I personally prefer mine to look like a radiating alien artifact lol to each his own.

It was my first go at it and i actually did it without taking the center console off so now that I know how to take it off I am going to be redoing it sometime this summer with some more LEDs.

Btw mods, could you move this to the 04+ section or the how-to section? Seems a little out of place here since it's a tutorial.