How-To Replace Map and Dome lights with LED's - Performed in an 08 Scab - Ford F150 Forum

AJRogers · 08-23-2008, 03:41 PM

Took this morning to replace my map lights and dome light with white Superflux LED's from Oznium.com. I highly suggest if you are the least bit interested in aftermarket lighting check out Oznium. They have the absolute BEST customer service I have ever seen and the products are outstanding.

MAP LIGHTS
First I had use my multimeter to find the positive and negative on the overhead console board, simple enough.

Then I had to decide how to mount the LED's. After seeing how the bulbs were attached to the panel, I thought that coming through the small hole seen in the bottom of the bulb holder would be great.

But it turns out the holes were just a little too small. SO I drilled them out just enough for the wires to fit snugly through.

So then to get the LED's mounted I had to snip them off before the resistor, slip the wires through and then rewire them.

The next step was to wrap each wire around the corresponding prong.

Then mount the bulb holder back onto the panel!

Here is a shot I took of the LED size compared to the bulb size

Continued on next post due to image limit...

AJRogers · 08-23-2008, 03:41 PM

And finished! Night shots to come in the future...

Next up, was the Dome Light

For the dome light I took a piece of ABS, drilled holes for six superflux LED's and had to figure out how to attach it to the prongs for the festoon bulb used in the dome light...

I then decided to just pull the filament out of my festoon and attach the non-working bulb to the ABS, so then it was a direct replacement part. TO pull the filament out, I pulled one of the end caps off of the glass and snipped the connection. I couldn't get the whole filament to come out which wasn't a big deal.

Also, you will see what seems to be TON of extra wire here, mainly because of the size of the resistor. A superflux LED is FOUR LED's in one, and I bought mine prewired.

Wired up. You can see one lead attached to each end of the festoon. I used these to attach to my LED's.

Next step was to snap it back into place and give it juice!

blackbetty · 08-23-2008, 04:09 PM

good write up....get some night shots to see how well it helps

AJRogers · 08-23-2008, 04:43 PM

I will grab some more pictures tonight. I did this mainly for looks because I hate "yellow" lights, but I think increased brightness will be a side effect

The superflux LED's are insanely bright, here are the same ones used as license plate lights on my BMW.

blackbetty · 08-23-2008, 08:48 PM

that is a mod id like to do, a bright white license plate light like the bmw's have...its realy a little thing to make a big difference

AJRogers · 08-24-2008, 12:18 AM

Night Shots

LovetheTide · 08-24-2008, 01:14 AM

This might be the hardest project of a simple task I've seen. Why didn't you just replace the bulbs? They do make bulbs that replace the stock bulbs.

AJRogers · 08-24-2008, 01:17 AM

I have never seen an led bulb this bright

and you can get a prewired superflux for two bucks (I have bags laying around from previous projects so I didn't have to order anything to do this).

A superflux led is just four leds focused into one point, that is where you get your brightness.

It took about 45 minutes to do everything, I have a ton of experience with this stuff though.

blackbetty · 08-24-2008, 01:57 AM

honestly thats daylight as far as im concerned...thats great man, i think that is just a perfect solution to dim lights like the center light is on my truck

Kevin O. · 08-24-2008, 02:13 AM

wow those lights make a huge difference, nice work. I was thinking of doing something like that as mine barely lights up my single cab. It's a little old... yeah i need to do something about that, thanks for the write up.