Door Handle LEDs

[hyunelan2]

This is not really my 'style', but my buddy sent me a picture of his latest mod. He put 3 leds under each handle on his expidition. Like I said, not for me, but someone my find this interesting... I've never seen this before, but then again there's not too many modified cars around me.

[carbonman]

I was about to say I've had this done for over a year but after review of the pic I see that its on the outside and not on the inside. Thats kinda neat :)

[SuperGLS]

Interesting, but not something I'd do. I suppose it would compliment some underbody lighting pretty well.

[Keyan]

Makes it easier for one to unlock their door without a keyless, no doubt. :)

[mbv2001]

I've seen it done on cribs
Redmans cadi had those on them that was the 1st time I've seen them its tight 2 me if ur car is black or something I thouight bout doing that

[Keyan]

And if you think about it, it would be really sweet on a black car with blacklight, so only your hand glows when it goes under the handle :D

[EliteElantra02]

Hey, I actually like them, and I am inspired, and since I only have 1 more class this week, not only will I finish my grill, but I'm doing that too! THANKS!!!!

[hyunelan2]

See, I knew sombody would like it. If I ever go with an underbody kit, I might do this as well, but it would be on a switch and used rarely, so I probably wouldn't ever do it on my silver car. Agree with the above statement that black would be sweet.

[ilanpro]

they would look cool if when you lift the handle the come on for a few seconds other than that is going to be problems with the cops

[dragonfighter60]

Not if they are off when you are driving.

[ilanpro]

that means you need a switch and you can forget that you have them on and get a ticket

[kylemorg]

I like it.

That mod would be really neat on an XD if the exterior door handle lights tied into the dome light that comes on with the keyless entry. That way you can see the door handles when you want to get in or out, and they'd fade out with the light, too! Maybe I'll look into that.

[yevRPS]

that or the ignition key ring

[EliteElantra02]

Kylemorg, see if you can look into that for me and everyone else, ya know, figure out the wiring. That would make a great addition to the DIY!!!!

[yevRPS]

the wiring would be easy as all hell....just need to find the way to run it which i'm sure isn't all that hard either. need to see how many LEDs i have leftover from the HVAC conversion project. i don't think i have enough...but they are cheap so maybe i'll do this if i'm bored

[southpawboston]

tapping into the fading dome light or the ignition key ring is the easy part; the difficult part will be running a new wire (which is necessary) into each doors without running a second wire conduit. that my friends is the challenge. yes it is easy to run a wire into the door ghetto fashion, but keeping the door wiring conduit looking stock is a biatch in this particular car...

[hyunelan2]

I agree with Southpaw, that that would be the hardest part... however it would be [cartman voice]totally sweet[/cartman voice] if you had that tied into the dome light on a XD with the factory keyless. Hit unlock and boom, handles are lit.

[southpawboston]

actually the 86-89 mazda 323 LX had a similar feature. if you lifted the door handle, the slot where you put the key in the tumbler illuminated, so you could see the key slot in the dark. this was in the days before keyless!

[kylemorg]

As Southpawboston said:

tapping into the fading dome light or the ignition key ring is the easy part...

That's the way the rear dome light is done, after all.

the difficult part will be running a new wire (which is necessary) into each doors without running a second wire conduit. that my friends is the challenge. yes it is easy to run a wire into the door ghetto fashion, but keeping the door wiring conduit looking stock is a biatch in this particular car...

Yes, that would be the problem. I was wondering if there's enough room in the conduit for two more wires, but I'll take spb's word for it...

The other option for getting power to the LED door handles is spring-loaded (brass?) contact pins in the doorframe that make contact when the door is closed and break when the door is opened. However, that introduces a whole mess of problems like shorting out and deterioration of the contacts...

[hyunelan2]

I will admit, I have not tried to run new wires into the doors. Doing it the correct way through the existing door conduit does sound to be the best approach, even if it is a super-pita. Good idea about the contact plates, but those would probably be more of a hassle than rewiring the whole damn door.

[Onelove5683]

I've seen it done on cribs
Redmans cadi had those on them
exactly.

[yevRPS]

how do the hadles come off?

[Jlivan]

It would look cool on the inside but I am not sure it would look good on the outside. Well I guess if you can rig them to just light up when you hit the door remote, that would look pretty cool.

[yevRPS]

i couldn't find anything on webtech about taking the the exterior handles out....anybody done that? share your wisdom if you know how

[southpawboston]

I was wondering if there's enough room in the conduit for two more wires, but I'll take spb's word for it...


not sure about how much spare space there is inside the conduit, but the PITA part of this is getting a spare wire through the molex connectors on either end of the conduit. they are molded snap connectors like most other connectors, with male/female matching pins. if there are any unused pin slots you could probably just bore out the hole a little and run the wire through the bored out pin slot that way (i know the passenger door must have spare pin slots since it doesn't have all the window and mirror functions that the driver's door has. the other PITA part of it is that, even to disconnect the molex connectors, you have to take the door off the hinges!

[hyunelan2]

OK, what about stealing power? There's already power in the door for the lock actuators... what if you just spliced the LED line into those, so when you hit lock or unlock on the remote, the handles would flash. Not as 'neat' as the fade out with the dome light, but a hell of a lot easier.

[kylemorg]

Here's an Ebay ad for lights for the door handles... I don't see any pictures of the actual assembly, so I don't know if they're using surface-mount LED or the two-lead type...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=58019&item=5739358207&rd=1