tshrey
Ready to race!
- Location
- Lon Gisland
I hate blue and want to change out to the red leds in the door sill trim and the door panel that come in the GTI. Anyone know if they are the same pieces (ie direct swap)?
7
GTI led swap?
- Thread starter tshrey
- Start date
tshrey
Ready to race!
- Location
- Lon Gisland
I can verify the pieces interchange, but finding them is not trivial. So I pulled it all apart...
Factory setup is a pair of what look like 3014 right-angle smd's shining into a strip of plexi.
I pulled that and put in a red button smd at each end. Because they are on an angle with respect to the plexi you don't get total internal reflection so the light attenuates a little over the length of the plastic. Putting one at each end took care of that.
Used the factory connector after looming everything.
Looks great, but because of the refresh rate of a digital camera and the led output getting the color to show true in a pic is almost impossible. Going to have to knock down the level in vcds when I'm all done.
Factory setup is a pair of what look like 3014 right-angle smd's shining into a strip of plexi.
I pulled that and put in a red button smd at each end. Because they are on an angle with respect to the plexi you don't get total internal reflection so the light attenuates a little over the length of the plastic. Putting one at each end took care of that.
Used the factory connector after looming everything.
Looks great, but because of the refresh rate of a digital camera and the led output getting the color to show true in a pic is almost impossible. Going to have to knock down the level in vcds when I'm all done.
Last edited:
LaRon16
New member
- Location
- Los Angeles
So you pulled it all apart and soldered it all back together with new LEDs? I have been wondering if this was possible. And if it was maybe even possible to put in a multi color LED and have some sort of way to change colors. Is there any chance you could kind of walk me through this? I have the GTI and the red lights now. I think I want something more custom.
tshrey
Ready to race!
- Location
- Lon Gisland
I didn't unsolder the leds from the stock board, I removed them altogether and put smd diodes against the end of the plexi strip. Problem is because the led's I used are too big they are laying at an angle to the end of the strip. So you don't get total internal reflection, the light dies off over the length of the strip, that is why I put one at each end. I'm not too happy with it though, so I'm looking to source actual replacement led's to solder on the circuit board. I'll update this once I find them.
tshrey
Ready to race!
- Location
- Lon Gisland
Pretty sure I found the replacement led's. They match the specs of 3010 microside led's; I ordered 20 Osram LR Y8SF chips. Should know more Tuesday...
tshrey
Ready to race!
- Location
- Lon Gisland
Some more details. Grabbed a lower trim piece from a GTI to see how they differ.
The underside plastic trim is attached to the metal with a thin piece of double sided tape. Use plastic to separate them, something softer than the metal so you don't distort it. Do it very slowly with some heat to soften the tape.
Fully separated
Turns out the GTI led's are white and shining through a piece of red film.
Tonight I got the red 3010 led's. I unsoldered the blue ones and put the new ones on. It is not an easy thing to do on a flimsy plastic board and it is very tiny.
Working. Going to install into the R sill trims this evening.
The underside plastic trim is attached to the metal with a thin piece of double sided tape. Use plastic to separate them, something softer than the metal so you don't distort it. Do it very slowly with some heat to soften the tape.
Fully separated
Turns out the GTI led's are white and shining through a piece of red film.
Tonight I got the red 3010 led's. I unsoldered the blue ones and put the new ones on. It is not an easy thing to do on a flimsy plastic board and it is very tiny.
Working. Going to install into the R sill trims this evening.
Last edited:
tshrey
Ready to race!
- Location
- Lon Gisland
Sills came out great, with the correct leds in the ends of the plexi there were no hot spots anywhere and no attenuation of the light along the length of the plastic.
Did the doors yesterday. Considerably more effort. Have to drill out the sonic welds holding the door handle trim strip in place.
The holder for the light strip contains a small package with a much larger led in it. I couldn't source the led anywhere and the size let me install a standard red SMD into the spot so I removed the factory unit and then bonded and hot-glued it into place.
Because the lens of the led was larger than the light pipe I got a hot spot on the led end, so a little careful marking of the plastic with a sharpie took down the brightness near the led.
Buttoned back up and powered with a test box at 12V.
After integrating it into the factory wiring and then plugging it into the door I didn't have any light. Took a while to figure out what was going on. Screw you VW, who the hell uses a black and red wire in a DC system and assigns the black to be 12V? After flipping the polarity of my wiring everything is good. Need to get some final shots with a decent camera.
Did the doors yesterday. Considerably more effort. Have to drill out the sonic welds holding the door handle trim strip in place.
The holder for the light strip contains a small package with a much larger led in it. I couldn't source the led anywhere and the size let me install a standard red SMD into the spot so I removed the factory unit and then bonded and hot-glued it into place.
Because the lens of the led was larger than the light pipe I got a hot spot on the led end, so a little careful marking of the plastic with a sharpie took down the brightness near the led.
Buttoned back up and powered with a test box at 12V.
After integrating it into the factory wiring and then plugging it into the door I didn't have any light. Took a while to figure out what was going on. Screw you VW, who the hell uses a black and red wire in a DC system and assigns the black to be 12V? After flipping the polarity of my wiring everything is good. Need to get some final shots with a decent camera.