Installation of additional lighting in the interior. Choosing how to illuminate the car interior - LEDs or neons

It’s not that difficult to make foot lighting in a car interior, and it will also look quite attractive. As an example, let’s take a story that I personally witnessed.

One evening, an old car pulled up to the bus stop, but almost no one paid attention to it. But that was until the driver opened the doors, after which bright lights flashed in the cabin, which aroused the interest of many.

Plus, the car interior looked more attractive. That is, thanks to the light lights, the nondescript old car upholstery received a chic look, which, of course, could not help but attract the views of others.

LED lighting can transform any car, including the oldest one, which is the main advantage of this innovation.

How the backlight works

The LED backlight can be customized depending on your preferences. For example, you can make it turn on simultaneously with the standard lighting when you open the doors, or you can control it using an electronic unit.

You can also combine the two options. That is, we make the lighting in the lower part of the cabin neon and connect it to the door opening sensor, and we make the rest of the lighting LED, but we connect it through a switch unit.

Types of backlight

Car interior lighting can be:

1).LED. The main advantage of this option is ease of installation. In this case, the emitters do not require a fixing device. Individual LEDs are miniature, so they can even be installed in sockets for standard lamps. The LED strip is shockproof and sealed.

2).Neon. The light from neon lights is bright and saturated. The lighting is difficult to install, and the lamps in the installation are quite capricious. They are afraid of mechanical damage.

DIY car interior lighting

Under the feet of the driver and passenger, the lighting can be made of neon, and the ceiling can be illuminated with LED lamps.

Neon lighting installation . First of all, it is necessary to install special emitters, for which you will need:

1. Nylon clamps;
2. Aluminum corner;
3. Neon emitters;
4. Self-tapping screws;

We saw off a corner to fit the size of the emitter and light it with self-tapping screws under the dashboard. The light should fall down directly under your feet. After this, we fix the emitter with clamps to the corner.

We do the same with passenger seats. In the rear seats, we screw it with the edge up, which will protect the emitter from mechanical damage.

We carefully lay all the wires under the floor and pull them out to the dashboard on the driver’s side. If necessary, the wires at the connection points can be extended and insulated.

When connecting, the wires should be connected to the door opening sensor and the interior lighting switch so that when the door is opened and the lights are turned on, our additional lighting comes on.

Installing LED lighting .Installation of LED footlights is carried out according to a standard scheme, which is almost the same for all cars.

But for work we need;

1. Heat-shrink tubing;
2. Wires (section 4x0.5 mm);
3. LED strip and single diodes (you can take a ready-made factory-assembled strip like SMD 5050, but it costs more, so you can buy an RGB strip sold by the meter);

You can install backlighting on the instrument panel, in places for interior lamps, with standard lighting elements. All this can be replaced with LEDs. Single LEDs have the same base as standard lamps, and therefore, if necessary, they can be easily replaced.

Next, we decide on the location for installing the backlight. Traditionally, it is installed in the foot area and along the perimeter of the roof along the racks. First you need to measure the required length of the tape, then cut it to the required size. In this case, the mode is only in places with contacts for soldering.

The wire must be measured in such a way that it is enough to reach the ignition switch, but it is also recommended to provide some margin.

We cut off, strip the ends and solder to the tape, after which we stretch the heat-shrink tube and, using a household hair dryer or lighter, heat it until it shrinks. We should do exactly the same thing with other pieces of tape.

Connection options:

• connect the container via RGB block;
• connection in the same way as neon lamps.

Clause 3.1. Traffic regulations prohibit operation vehicle, if “the number, type, color, location and mode of operation of external lighting devices do not comply with the design requirements of the vehicle.” But you want, oh how you want to give your car some personality traits, including through the play of light and shadow. Meanwhile, you can engage in lighting design without coming into conflict with the law. Changing the interior lighting is not prohibited by traffic regulations, and today we will tell you how you can illuminate a familiar interior.

Ceiling lamps

When people talk about interior lighting in a car, the first thing that comes to mind is ceiling lights. They are the main sources of light in the dark. Many have probably already replaced conventional incandescent lamps in lampshades with LED ones.

And they shine brighter and consume less electricity, and therefore can burn all night almost without draining the battery. The main thing is to choose a shade of color that suits you best. True, until recently, these same shades had to be chosen in advance, because they could not be changed during use.

But now RGB lamps have appeared on the market, capable of changing both the color of the glow and its strength. To do this, the delivery kit includes a remote control with which you can set these parameters. Such lamps are connected to the lampshade using special adapters, which eliminates the need for soldering or twisting power wires, and the “light bulbs” are attached to the lampshade using double-sided tape included in the kit.

It remains to add that such a set of two LED panels and a remote control costs about 300 rubles, and the car’s interior looks very impressive in their light.

Foot lights in a car

At one time, this option was considered chic: floor carpets were illuminated only in business and executive class cars. But over time, such a useful feature migrated to simpler cars. And those owners who did not have such lighting in their cars began installing it themselves. True, not everyone is well versed in electrics, and not everyone will undertake to introduce an additional lamp into the interior. A set of four lamps, just for each of the seats in the cabin, will help solve the problem with little effort.

They are secured in the right place with double-sided tape, and are powered from the cigarette lighter socket. All that remains is to lay the wires so that they are not very noticeable, and you can enjoy the light in your feet.

A set with a fixed color costs about 400 rubles. A set of lamps that allow you to change the color of the glow will cost around 1,500 rubles and comes complete with a wireless remote control.

By the way, models with a Wi-Fi module are not much more expensive, but they allow you to control the light even remotely. mobile device through a special application.

Machine contour lighting

This type of interior lighting remains one of the rather expensive options today if you order it at the time of purchase. new car. Thanks to it, the luxurious interiors of premium cars become even more magnificent at dusk and at night. Light guides installed in certain parts of the instrument panel and door trim create an indescribable atmosphere; you just have to activate this option. And the ability to change the color of the glow allows you to set the mood for the entire trip. And it would be naive to believe that the enterprising Chinese will not start producing inexpensive kits that will allow you to turn it into a salon Mercedes-Benz S-Class even the interior of a shabby Zhiguli car.

The kit is a light guide, powerful LED, a driver for connecting it to the car network and a set of wires. The light guide is placed in the joints of the parts of the instrument panel or trim, after which an LED is inserted into the end, the power of which is turned on parking lights. With this connection, the lighting will delight you when external lighting devices are turned on, and not just when the doors are opened. A kit with a pre-selected LED color (there are about 10 of them) and a two-meter light guide will cost 400 rubles. If you want to change the intensity and color of the backlight during operation, then you can’t do without a set with an RGB light source.

A set of a 5-meter light guide and a wireless control panel costs about 2,000 rubles, which is still several times cheaper than the cost of such a feature as an option.

Instrument panel lighting

The instrument panel is also very often the subject of design in a car. Some people are not satisfied with the standard backlight color, others think the brightness of certain icons is insufficient, others want to make the dashboard multi-colored, for example making the speedometer area above a certain speed red. Upgrading the instrument panel has now become much easier. To do this, just order a set consisting of 40 LEDs of different colors, and the instrument cluster of your car will sparkle with new colors.

The LEDs already have a corresponding base, so you don’t need a soldering iron to install them in the instrument panel. You will only need to remove the corresponding light bulb and insert a new light source in its place. However, it should be borne in mind that before putting the instrument panel in place, you need to make sure that the LEDs are lit.

If they are inserted incorrectly, that is, the polarity is not observed, they will not burn. Although they are light-emitting, they are still diodes, and a diode only passes current in one direction. The set costs about 500 rubles.

This project should appeal to most car owners. Everyone must have tried to find shoes under the seats and knows that the light bulbs in the cabin are so dim that it is quite difficult to do this. So why don’t you make your own LED car interior lighting, and thus make it stand out among others?

Necessary note: I didn't want to risk the integrity of my wiring so I didn't cut anything, just threw the wires on top. Well, now let's get down to business from talking.

What do we need for lighting? So:

- LED strips. I prefer to use RGB strips, which allow me to choose from a number of colors rather than being stuck with just one color.
- LED RGB strip controller with remote control remote control.
- Four-wire wire. Usually from light diode strip there are V+ (white), R (red), G (green) and B (blue) wires.
- Connectors.
- Soldering iron.
- Silicone glue.
You will also need brains and patience. Because as soon as you make this LED lighting for the car interior, you will start begging the sun for sunset so you can take a ride in your pumped-up car))).

Once the plan is clear, we begin designing the wiring, taking into account the connectors. Why connectors? They play an important role in both connecting and protecting the connection. Let's say several LEDs fail. No one wants to rip out all the wiring. When using connectors, you will only need to remove the faulty section of the tape, repair or replace them and insert them into place.

In the next image we see four connectors arranged in pairs at the back and front. Thus, the wire to each tape passes between them. The LED controller is connected to a 12V power supply.
Now, since I don't want to cut the wiring and include additional fuses in the circuit, I will power it from the cigarette lighter or charger, which will be very simple to do. Also in this case, when you remove the ignition key, the lighting will go out.

Now that everything is planned, the next very important step awaits us - measurements. The importance of this stage is to further position the elements in the right places without tension on the wires.
We take the first measurements for the section of interior lighting that is located under the dashboard, determining the total length of the two front LED strips. Secondly, we take measurements for the tapes located at the back, under the seats.
After this part of the work is done, we proceed to determine the length of the wires, keeping in mind that we need to have a margin of length to be able to adjust them to the place where they are attached to the tapes. To determine the length of the wires, we measure the following areas:
- from the controller to the front left connector;
- from the front left connector to the front right connector;
- from the front left connector to the rear left connector;
- from the rear left connector to the rear right connector.
When connecting the lighting circuit under the chairs, leave extra length of wires so that the connections do not break when the chair moves forward or backward.

After taking measurements, it’s time to cut the LED strips to length.

Our project requires four pieces of LED strip. All LED strips have cut lines every three LEDs. Keep in mind that it is better to make the segment shorter than longer, since the extra “tail” of the tape will dangle, and this will give the appearance of an unfinished design and spoil the impression.

After soldering, it is best to check its quality by lighting all the colors of the LEDs in sequence. So, in the images we see that the three primary colors are checked - red, green, blue.

If they light up without any problems, you need to ensure the safety of the soldering points. One way is to apply silicone glue, which will prevent the wires from contacting each other and ensure a rigid connection.

ready for installation in a car. In the same way, we will make three more, which in total will give us four sections of car interior lighting.
Now is the time to get into the car and start connecting the circuit.

As you can see, first of all we attach the LED strip located under the instrument panel with glue. Then we attach the connector to it. Pay attention to the photographs - they clearly show what is being said here.

After the job is done, let's hide our wires. It is enough to insert the wires inside the panels and stretch them to the seats, to where the next section of LED lighting for the car interior will be installed.

Under the chairs, pieces of LED strip should not be glued with glue or adhesive tape, but passed between the springs and strings and tied at the ends. It should be noted that I left a sufficient margin of wire length so that moving the chair forward or backward would not affect the integrity of the connections. When this step is completed, we proceed to remaking the charger.

There are several in various ways power our interior lighting:
- from unused fuses from the fuse block using jumpers;
- through door panel. In this case, the backlight will shine when the doors are open and go out when they close;
- from the headlights (either from the main fuse box or from the cut wiring supplying the headlights).
But we will use Charger. Why?
The reason for redesigning the charger is that I don't use the cigarette lighter for anything other than charging my phone. So why not modify the "charger" if it is used frequently and thus make it easier to use it for two tasks at the same time.
Most phone chargers provide 4V output (which is not enough for our LED light). That is, they lower the voltage car battery from 12 V to 4 V. All we need is to run the wires past the voltage stabilizer.

When we open the charger, we will see a fuse (protects against overloads) and a stabilizer circuit (which lowers the voltage). We solder our wires to the fuse and to the ground, bypassing the stabilizer. This way we will get the 12 V we need!
This is how we power our LED interior lighting. Once all connections are made, we will begin checking our work.

Using the remote control you can:
- turn on/off the backlight;
- change colors;
- regulate intensity;
- use fade effects.
Now all we have to do is wait for the sun to set, and we can roll our pumped-up car out of the garage!

Testing interior lighting in the morning.

Who doesn't want their car to look something special? This can be achieved different ways, one of them is installing lighting in the car interior. Just imagine - you open the car door, and the interior is filled with light, like the cabin of an interplanetary spacecraft! Doing interior tuning with your own hands is not as difficult as it seems.

Decorative lighting for car interior

You need to immediately decide what kind of lighting in the car’s interior will be most attractive and what colors will be suitable. There are two options: neon bulbs and LED strip.

LEDs on a flexible strip are extremely easy to install, their small size allows them to be used anywhere, they are sealed, impact-resistant and durable, but the interior lighting is minimal.

Neon bulbs are difficult to install, capricious when switching on and off, and are very sensitive to damage. But the neon glow can illuminate half of the car’s interior.

The ideal interior lighting option: a combination of LEDs and neon. Tuning dashboard possible with LEDs, and the floor with neon tubes. If desired, you can configure the operating modes of the LEDs.

Neon lighting on cars

Do-it-yourself neon footlights in a car are easy to install and look unusual. For this you will need:

• a set of clamps for fastening;
• aluminum corners;
• self-tapping screws;
• neon lamps.

Step by step instructions:

1. It is necessary to cut off the cigarette lighter connector from the lamps and strip the ends.
2. Screw a piece of angle along the length of the lamp under the dashboard and attach the lamp to it with clamps.
3. Repeat wherever neon lighting is planned for the car.

Attention! Near rear seats It is better to secure the corner with its edge up; in this case, the lamp will be better protected from damage. If everything is done carefully, the result will be only the light, but not its source.

The power source used is: switch button interior lighting, door opening/closing sensor and battery.

Advice: One of the wires can be connected to the throttle position sensor. Then, after flashing the engine ECU, the device will remind you that the lighting is installed in the car’s interior. This will protect neon lamps from voltage surges during chip tuning.

DIY neon interior lighting! Opening the car door, you can see the illuminated floor.

Car interior decoration with LEDs

To work with LEDs you need to prepare:

• LED strip;
• wires;
• heat shrink tubes;
• single LEDs.

Advice: It’s better to buy a factory model, because the one sold by the meter will have to be modified and connected via an RGB controller.

Step-by-step instructions:

Illuminating the interior handles is more difficult; the tools you will need are a screwdriver and a drill:

1. First, the door trim and door handles are removed.
2. You need to drill holes in the places where the light bulbs will be located.
3. Insert LEDs into the holes.
4. Connect power to them from the electric windows.

LED lighting in the car interior is ready! You can get into the car and check the intensity of the glow and the functionality of the car's interior lighting.

This is how you can customize the interior of your car without special skills and with your own hands. As a result, even an old, shabby car will look like a respectable foreign car from the inside.

Flexible neon in car design

It's no secret that many car enthusiasts want to make their car stand out from the crowd of other cars. Today there are quite a lot of ways to do this. In this article we will look at one of the most popular methods today - flexible neon.

The advantages of flexible neon are its low energy consumption, high strength and durability. In addition, you do not need special knowledge to use flexible neon. It is easy to cut and bend, so you can create almost any composition. Neon is easy to install anywhere; it does not break or fade.
Flexible neon is widely used for decoration interior design car interior:
The most important stage in the design is the selection of color combinations. It is necessary to carefully select color scheme exactly for your car. The most commonly used colors. In addition, before you start decorating, you need to decide on the lighting method; you can run neon along the contours of doors or dashboards; you can create interesting compositions, ignoring the peculiarities of the curves of the interior. It all depends on your imagination.
The interior lighting of almost any car often does not meet the specific requirements, so by installing flexible neon inside the cabin, you can achieve required level comfort. To do this, it is recommended to install flexible neon on the instrument panel, door handles, glove box, and pedals. In addition, you can completely replace the standard backlight by installing neon.
Installing the neon cord is quite simple. All you need is to use glue to secure the neon cord in the way you want and power it. You will also have to consider where to install the power cord.
Let's look at the example of door lighting. First, we disassemble the door, remove the trim and drill a hole for the power cord.

All that remains is to install flexible neon under the sheathing elements.

If you wish, you can completely abandon dismantling the door and trim, and simply glue the neon along the contour, but in this case, it will stick out more and, accordingly, will be less protected from mechanical influences.
Similarly, lighting is installed throughout the vehicle interior.

In order to connect power to the neon cord, we will use the connection diagram from the car’s on-board network or 12V network adapter

By decorating your car with flexible neon, you achieve not only beauty, but also other beneficial features. Flexible neon, unlike any other type of lighting, does not dazzle or distract the driver at all. At the same time, neon glow provides measured, rich light. In the dark, you won’t have to look for the handle on the door trim; you can comfortably get out of the car without fear of getting caught on something. Illumination of the car increases its safety.
Thus, with the help of flexible neon, you can change the interior to your taste. The beauty and originality of your car now depends only on the imagination of its owner.