Red ambient lights rear and dash

[FixIt]

The emitter seems to easily align with the fiber optic cable, but I'm not sure how well that fiber optic cable aligns with the diffuser which is covered up by a blob of molten plastic. (See pics below).

In principle this looks pretty good, except for the part where you see the fiber optic cable disappear underneath that blob of plastic (came like this from AliExpress). But the LED emitter doesn't produce a lot of light at all. I'll have to take a few pics in the car and compare with the stock lights later on. If I use my phone's led flashlight and hold that fiber end piece against it, the diffuser lights up like a Christmas tree, but that phone LED seems to be at least 10x brighter than that the LED in the emitter and this concerns me a bit.

 

[FixIt]

I just tried it out in the car using the super bright LED in my cellphone and then it looks comparable with the stock ambient light. So of course I had to open up the emitter since it was only producing 1/10th of the light of my cellphone and here are a few pics of the internals. Just a piece of red transparent plastic as opposed to a real red LED. Time to play and I can probably replace that LED with a better quality version. Let's check out Digi-key or Mouser and make this better

 

[FixIt]

After some more testing: it seems the LED is reasonably bright and likely the fiber was not close enough to the LED. The apparent brightness of a light source is proportional the the inverse square of its distance and moving the fiber up against the LED made a big difference.

I also included a few pics of the brightness of the diffuser ON/OFF in a normally lid room (too bright) and this may just work. The red transparent paper may throw in a wrench though so I will probably replace the LED for a red variant which will be brighter.

 

[Cuzoe]

Nice work. I don't do math but I understand that the light pipe has to be practically touching LED. But then using red plastic instead of a red LED is nonsense, haha.

 

[FixIt]

I ordered two options to play with, to replace that relatively dim white led by a brighter red light source. One is a SMD led and the other option is a led illuminator for fiber optic cables. Just have to wait a few days before I can see which works best. My use case is red light only since I already have this in my front doors and door sils.

 

[FixIt]

Just wanted to show how well the option with aluminum illuminator is working. I may even have to reduce intensity a bit, to be more in line with existing ambient lighting.

I ended up using another one than the one I listed in my previous post, but basically the same thing. I'll add another picture below with details of this illuminator. It's only $14 and I'm sure a heck of a lot cheaper (and better) then these plastic illuminators with a piece of transparent red piece of plastic inside! This one is solid and has a screw to hold the fiber in place.

 

[Cuzoe]

That sucker is BRIGHT!

 

[FixIt]

Bright and beautiful indeed
Dimming it down is easy, just move the fiber a mm or so further away and screw it down again. It's like this illuminator was made for the ambient fiber, perfect fit!

 

[OceanJack]

@FixIt Hey, I'm interested in this alternative over the Aliexpress kit.
Thanks for posting, just a quick question about the front dash plastic. Is there a place already for the fiber optic?

 

[FixIt]

@FixIt Hey, I'm interested in this alternative over the Aliexpress kit.
Thanks for posting, just a quick question about the front dash plastic. Is there a place already for the fiber optic?

Actually, I did get the AliExpress kit but the light source (emitter) that is included barely illuminated the diffuser, and hence I looked for other light source options. Let me look for the link....

 

[FixIt]

This is the kit, just the dash ambient light. The included light source was a white led (RGB LED with 4 connections) on a tiny PCB, using a small piece of red transparent plastic. It was too weak and not really red. The strip with diffuser (I called that fiber optic cable in my post) is made of metal and good quality. It fits very well in the existing trim from which you need to remove the stock metal strip w/o diffuser. So my car already came with a metal strip in that dash trim, just not with a diffuser. The AliExpress kit is that metal strip with diffuser, the emitter and some cable.

So all am doing is replacing that small black plastic emitter light source, by that aluminum emitter that I bought from Amazon for $14.

https://a.aliexpress.com/_ms0QuAE

 

[FixIt]

So my car came with the plastic trim and it had the standard metal strip already in it, without any diffuser or light source.

I also want to do this for the rear doors which also have this trim, but I noticed there is no metal strip in those. I believe AliExpress sells the trim with metal strip that has a diffuser in it. Possibly the emitter that came in my kit was simply not that good and others may be brighter, it is tough to find reviews for this and I couldn't find the emitter part as a single item for sale, so I bought it from amazon.

 

[easybreezy]

That red fiber optic light source looks great. I also bought the 3 ambient light trim for the dash and rear doors but had concerns about the included light source. You and Fraysa ([Mini Writeup] LED ambient light in glovebox trim) have both stated the included light isn't great. I have white lights in front doors now. I might go with what you bought or part 3G0927103 for ~$25. I just don't know which A-F part is white.

 

[FixIt]

That red fiber optic light source looks great. I also bought the 3 ambient light trim for the dash and rear doors but had concerns about the included light source. You and Fraysa ([Mini Writeup] LED ambient light in glovebox trim) have both stated the included light isn't great. I have white lights in front doors now. I might go with what you bought or part 3G0927103 for ~$25. I just don't know which A-F part is white.

Great find with the actual p/n! I see AliExpress sells the emitter in white blue and red, but they look like the same cheesy plastic parts and I do not have much confidence in the quality. They also have multi color parts and perhaps those work better, provided your car supports 10/30 colors. For now I'm sticking with that bright red emitter from Amazon and see how it compares to the stock ones in my front doors. If it is not too bright, I may just replace the ones in the front doors for a more consistent look. I'll add pics once I had a chance to get it in my car.

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805581082643.html?spm=a2g0n.detail.1000014.5.3bd0o6jvo6jvEV&gps-id=platformRecommendH5&scm=1007.18499.332340.0&scm_id=1007.18499.332340.0&scm-url=1007.18499.332340.0&pvid=5d1be9fd-80ab-4432-a249-752784d77055&_t=gps-idlatformRecommendH5,scm-url:1007.18499.332340.0,pvid:5d1be9fd-80ab-4432-a249-752784d77055,tpp_buckets:668#2846#8107#1934&isseo=y&pdp_npi=4@dis!USD!12.13!6.07!!!87.38!43.69!@2101c5c217112255121305677e69a4!12000036568905608!rec!US!!AB

 

[Cuzoe]

@FixIt the front door light strips aren't connected to a light pipe extension like the aftermarket add-ons. The LED is right at the tip of the light strip molded in. Practically required surgery to get it out, and then you'll have to somehow get your new LED to sit exactly flush with the end of it.

If it turns out the rears are much brighter than the factory ones your best bet is going to be to do something to dim the rears down to match.