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1998 Mystique LS:
-2.5 Duratec ATX
-Vibrant White
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Nice.  I just plan to fix broken stuff. 
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Ya, i would've done more this summer, but i had to fix broken stuff too...mainly my trans  Stoopid CD4E drained my bank account. 
1998 Mystique LS:
-2.5 Duratec ATX
-Vibrant White
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holy sheet thats bright. My courtesy lights blow. Like...the above ones are retarded and the guy who owned the car before me put a purple (blacklight) bulb in, and it emits abslutly no light beyond 3 inches.
2000 Contour SVT
SF - #542 of 2150
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98.5 Black Contour SVT #5959
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Holy Crap! It's flipp'n brighter then a Christmas tree in your car!! But I like it. Don't suppose you can post a How-To on the dome light??
-Mike
98 Contour SVT
Toreador Red #49 of 6535 Built on 3/25/97
WR Headers, Borla Cat-Back, Torsen T2 LSD, K&N Short Ram, S-AFC and Focus Shift Tower
85 Camaro
1969 358ci, 97 TA interior, 91 Z28 GrdEfx and Aero Wing 255rwhp
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Originally posted by CSVT#49:
Holy Crap! It's flipp'n brighter then a Christmas tree in your car!! But I like it. Don't suppose you can post a How-To on the dome light??
x2
talk about wanting to stick it in the tailpipe for a while... 
Looks like I've taken after Amar in promoting the 'mercury' in the mystique. LEDs are a great touch and really brighten up the inside. It's nice to see that you're posting subtle mods that really make your ride stand out or look better than it was ever supposed to. I especially want to know what material you cut the 'Mercury' door sils into.
1998 Mercury Mystique LS
- Looking for SVT EXHAUST, SVT Rear bumper (silver frost) and ANY rocker mouldings (side skirts)
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Originally posted by CSVT#49:
Don't suppose you can post a How-To on the dome light??
Most of the physical details of the LED dome lights are basic. In order to mount the LEDs and heatsinks you need to pretty much gut the lamp areas....you can see from the pics how i opened them up. The way that the lamps work is by having constant 12V fed to the lamps at all times, then grounding out under certain conditions...like when the door switch grounds out or you flip the switches. So for the front lamp you can see if you look at all that metal stuff behind the lamp you have to ground out the driver for the LEDs on the center post of the center switch. The back dome light works the same way, you grond out on the curved little copper "V" thing.
The reason that you need drivers for the LEDs is that there can be a lot of spikes in the car's electrical system, so just using resistors can kill LEDs relatively quickly, or at least reduce their life greatly....and each of these leds are about $4 to $6, so it wouldn't be very fun to lose them. Some people use voltage regulators, as well, but most recommend constant current drivers. This is a good driver that i used for the two foot well LEDs, its very cheap, but the issue is that it produces quite a bit of heat...so you have to use a heatsink to dissipate the heat...which takes up more space. That's why i chose switch mode drivers for the dome light LEDs...much more efficient, like over 90% efficient at auto voltage. This is the datasheet for the driver i used on the dome lamps, one for each. But if you're seriously considering this mod, this driver is actually on sale this month, and about 66% the price i paid for the other ones  .
Anyway, the other consideration for the LED project is thermal management...The reason that these LEDs are able to produce more light than typical 5mm LEDs is because they can handle much more heat. The LEDs i used produce between 40 to 50 lumens...whereas, many 5mm white LEDs will make about 1 lumen. The LEDs themselves dont produce a ton of heat, but since they can't handle much heat, you need to cool them and pull away the heat that they do produce...usually done with heatsinks. The way you spec out the surface area is with thermal resistance circuits, Luxeon is pretty generous this way, they outline the process on their website and give other data to help you make the decision, details based on the type of heatink, flat or finned, horizontal or vertical, forced or natural convection...like for the passenger footwell, i used a flat aluminum plate since space was so tight. The heatsink area will also depend on the ambient emp you define...for the dome lights in summer heat choose a high temp...if heatsink size isn't feasible, you can always derate the LEDs and rund them below 350mA.
Anyway, links...
You can use whatever type of LEDs you want, but i used 1 watt stars, with lambertian output pattern (probably the best for courtesy lamps without external optics). Page:
http://lumileds.com/products/family.cfm?familyId=2
Future Electronics is their official distributor...but when i tried to buy from them before they kept giving me BS availabiltiy times (a luxeon rep even told me it was BS!) plus i always have problems with their website, so i dont like them.
I bought R-bin LEDs from:
www.ledsupply.com
Specifically:
http://ledsupply.com/lxhl-mw1d-r.php
Due to the manuafacturing process, i guess there can be a lot of variation in the final LED product, so output of the LED (flux output of light), and color can vary...so to specify what the output is, lumileds bins the LEDs...they just break them up into groups based on properties, and define the properties with a code. Link:
http://lumileds.com/pdfs/AB21.pdf
I chose R bin for the flux since it's the highest output.
Link for thermal considerations:
http://lumileds.com/pdfs/AB05.pdf
Link for electrical info:
http://lumileds.com/pdfs/AB11.PDF
Datasheet for the star family of LEDs:
http://lumileds.com/pdfs/DS23.pdf
Overall, i'd say read through all the info before taking on the project, it makes it much easier and safer to set up the lamps.
PM me if you have any otherr questions after going through all that info.
1998 Mystique LS:
-2.5 Duratec ATX
-Vibrant White
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Originally posted by amarv12:
...If it looks like the passenger footwell color is different, it's because it is. I ran out of LEDs so i had to use a different LED there that was binned at a different color and output.
...
Ghetto! J/K.
Looks good. Just don't drive to Roswell, NM. Someone might mistake it for a UFO at night. White car with LEDs in the pitch black desert. 
"Always do the cheap and easy ones first."
1996 V6 ATX 96K miles
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Originally posted by m4gician:
Originally posted by CSVT#49:
Holy Crap! It's flipp'n brighter then a Christmas tree in your car!! But I like it. Don't suppose you can post a How-To on the dome light??
x2
talk about wanting to stick it in the tailpipe for a while...
Looks like I've taken after Amar in promoting the 'mercury' in the mystique. LEDs are a great touch and really brighten up the inside. It's nice to see that you're posting subtle mods that really make your ride stand out or look better than it was ever supposed to. I especially want to know what material you cut the 'Mercury' door sils into.
Thanks. 
The door sills ended up taking a lot longer then they were supposed to.
The material is from Home Depot...don't know if you guys have them in canadia...they're extruded bars of aluminum, 1/8" thick, 2" wide, and i think 3' long in the nuts and bolts aisle...they are like $10 or close to that. I sanded them down with a palm sander then polished with "mothers" brand alum polish to really give it a good shine...then painted the words with metal paint...at first i just put a layer of wheel clear coat on top of that then i saw that it would smudge from my feet so i ended up having to put the plexiglass on top fastened with some stainless machine screws...i'm not too confident about the durability of the plexi, but we'll see...
1998 Mystique LS:
-2.5 Duratec ATX
-Vibrant White
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=Info=
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Joined: May 2002
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Hard-core CEG\'er
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Thanks for the kind words guys. 
1998 Mystique LS:
-2.5 Duratec ATX
-Vibrant White
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Originally posted by amarv12:
Ya, i would've done more this summer, but i had to fix broken stuff too...mainly my trans Stoopid CD4E drained my bank account.
I would've done more this summer too, but who wants to be outside when it is 107°? 
Lights look sweet man! Notice any major difference with the old fogs pointed back?
BrApple-its all in the way it is presented...but everythign on my resume is all me
TexasRealtor-I hope you spelling improves on your resume.
MxRacer-ladies and gentlemen, welcome to ironyville. population, texasrelator.
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Ya, one of my buddies said it looked like headlights on the back of my car.  I think i need to aim them down more, and the tint seems to have robbed a bit of output, but ya, does put out a lot more light than just the stockers. I hated the stock reverse lamps...especially when you have to back out of long curvy driveways. 
1998 Mystique LS:
-2.5 Duratec ATX
-Vibrant White
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