Ambient lighting project for Momentum
Posted: Mon May 31, 2021 7:37 pm
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.
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.