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Ambient lighting project for Momentum

Posted: Mon May 31, 2021 7:37 pm
by agilefrog
The rear of my Momentum is a bit of a black hole at night, so finished a project to add some LED's in the rear door cards, rear central console, and front console under the USB socket. Fairly straight forward. If you want to copy here's what I did:

LED's (white for rear & blue for front console I got from ebay. Just search for 12v led's with mounting holder. I used some inline wiretaps that I got from Amazon to make the connections.

Rear door cards come off with three bolts (two in base of card, one under door release, then card lifts up. Reach behind and release door release cable & unplug electric window switch. Wrapped behind the card in a foam bag is a spare connector that has both earth & ambient light connections (I used a cheap meter to find the right two wires). I tapped into these for the white LED. Drilled a small hole under the armrest and mounted the LED. These LED's will dim with the ambient light brightness control.

Rear console pulls off towards rear of car. 4 metal clips. Needed a tug, but the clips are solid and wont break. Drilled a small hole in the top of the dished area where the USB socket is and mounted the LED. Tapped into the USB power for the connection. This one wont dim with the ambient light, but wasnt a big issue for me.

Front console - the section with the USB socket on pulls down easily. Again drilled small hole underneath in the middle, mounted LED and tapped into wires for lighter socket. Again this one wont dim, but the blue LED I chose (to avoid glare) isnt overly bright anyway, so all good.

Photo's below. I think it looks much better. In reality the lights arent as bright as they appear in the photos, and give a nice level of ambient light.

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Re: Ambient lighting project for Momentum

Posted: Mon May 31, 2021 10:00 pm
by tjj5495
Nice I like that and useful info on how to do it, well done

Re: Ambient lighting project for Momentum

Posted: Tue Jun 01, 2021 12:33 pm
by mss911
Hi @agilefrog,
Quick question - when you removed the door cards to expose the 'foam bag' with the connector in. Do you recall how many wires went into this connector ?

Just wondering if I could try an RGB or RGB+W Led.

Nice work BTW.

Thanks

Re: Ambient lighting project for Momentum

Posted: Tue Jun 01, 2021 3:11 pm
by agilefrog
Hi mss911 - Thanks, yes, I think there were 3 or 4. I think there was a 12v live, an earth and the live that varied voltage from the ambient light dimmer feed. It took a bit of probing with the meter to find which one dimmed! There was one other there that just gave a constant 5v or so, which I guessed was canbus so I left it alone! I think you could do something with one of those colour change LED interior light kits from ebay that have a small remote control (there is plenty of space in the armrest accessible once the electric window switch is popped out), but you would need a kit with a remote to change the colour, as threading a control cable thru the door harness into the car would be a total nightmare.

Re: Ambient lighting project for Momentum

Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2021 8:05 am
by lfpcorreia
agilefrog wrote: Tue Jun 01, 2021 3:11 pm Hi mss911 - Thanks, yes, I think there were 3 or 4. I think there was a 12v live, an earth and the live that varied voltage from the ambient light dimmer feed. It took a bit of probing with the meter to find which one dimmed! There was one other there that just gave a constant 5v or so, which I guessed was canbus so I left it alone! I think you could do something with one of those colour change LED interior light kits from ebay that have a small remote control (there is plenty of space in the armrest accessible once the electric window switch is popped out), but you would need a kit with a remote to change the colour, as threading a control cable thru the door harness into the car would be a total nightmare.
Great project!

Any will to do the same in the ceiling?

Re: Ambient lighting project for Momentum

Posted: Sat Jun 05, 2021 1:32 pm
by ChrisLF
Much better than the manufacturer installed ambient lighting, that's a joke!

Chris

Re: Ambient lighting project for Momentum

Posted: Tue Jun 08, 2021 5:27 pm
by Alex_O
That looks really good. Nice work, and thanks for the detailed description!

Re: Ambient lighting project for Momentum

Posted: Sun Jun 13, 2021 1:04 pm
by michael123
Nice! How front console led was mounted?