Wiring for an LED in the Map Light

Kuro3

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'06 Black Mazda 3s
Hey guys,

Ive been wanting to put an LED bulb in the maplight housing for quite sometime now to have as an ambient light at night when I turn the headlamps on. Can any of you help me out with the wiring, or have a map of which wire represent what in the roof housing?

Thanks
 
oh hehe, that's for replacing the maplight bulbs with LEDs, but I was thinking of drilling a hole or two to put in two blue led's that light up when I turn the headlights on and leaving the maplights as they are. And if I do that, how I should hook them in.

Great link though, I hadn't seen it before and had thought about replacing the license plate light so thanks anyways!
 
if you have the auto dimming mirror just splice into the power wire going to that. if not just run a wire down to the fuse box
 
if you have the auto dimming mirror just splice into the power wire going to that. if not just run a wire down to the fuse box


How does that solve turning on when the headlights are on? (I don't really know how the auto-dimming rear-view works, but the one in the benz works off of light detection.)



Personally, I have no idea. If you have/use the auto on lights, it will be more difficult. Otherwise, find the wire hooked up to the switch in the handle. Perhaps someone has a wiring diagram for our steering wheel+column wires.
 
If you want the LEDs to come on with the headlights the easiest method is to run a wire down to the ashtray section (behind all the panels obviously) and tap either the ashtray light or the cigarette lighter ring light. On my car the ashtray doesn't dim with the dash so I tapped the ring for my LEDs.
 
do you have a quick diagram for the wires in the ring that I can tap into for that? that would be really awesome thanks..
 
There already is some sort of blue ambient light right above the ashtray, I'm not sure if it is LED or not. But if you are going for overhead from what I've noticed most cars that have this as an OEM feature the light does not turn off with the headlights, but you can't see the light during the day since it is a very low intensity light.
 
but, so do you think that if I just connect the same wires from the LED that I'm gonna put in the maplight box to the ones in the blue ambient light above the ashtray it would be ok? or do you think it would be too dim, but then I guess that's ok if it's supposed to be ambient light and not a spotlight.
 
do you have a quick diagram for the wires in the ring that I can tap into for that? that would be really awesome thanks..

I don't have a diagram for them, but really it's pretty fool-proof. Once you pop out the asthray panel you'll see four connectors (assuming you don't have heated seats): airbag light, ashtray light, lighter socket, lighter ring. The ring plug is plugged into the driver's side of the lighter plug and is very obviously inset into an orange piece of plastic. The light shines into the plastic and the plastic glows, simple. The two wires coming off the plug are black, and orange (I think with a black stripe and silver dots). In any case the one that has orange is the hot 12v wire and the other is the ground. To tap it there are a few options. Option 1 is to use some wire taps, option 2 is to shove a spring clip into the back of the plug, and option 3 is to build a splitter. If you go with option 3 you'd basically be unplugging the plug and then making two Y-connectors that will plug into the two ports on the plug, and then split with one of the splits going to the ring, and the other going to whatever you're powering. You could also cut the wires, but I'm a big fan of not cutting wiring unless I need to.

tubebrner said:
There already is some sort of blue ambient light right above the ashtray, I'm not sure if it is LED or not. But if you are going for overhead from what I've noticed most cars that have this as an OEM feature the light does not turn off with the headlights, but you can't see the light during the day since it is a very low intensity light.

That's an incandecent light and while you could tap it for this project it's actually inset in the HVAC controls. The ashtray light and lighter ring are much more easily accessibly and so make the project much easier.

Kuro3 said:
but, so do you think that if I just connect the same wires from the LED that I'm gonna put in the maplight box to the ones in the blue ambient light above the ashtray it would be ok? or do you think it would be too dim, but then I guess that's ok if it's supposed to be ambient light and not a spotlight.

I tapped three blue LEDs off of the lighter ring. I have one mounted on each side of the center console pointing laterally, and the third mounted in the center back of the center console shining on the backseat floor. They almost perfectly match the intensity of the blue light above the ashtray..... which is great because it's exactly what I was going for..... just a touch of light to accent, vs. actually lighting the entire floor. Wherever you tap from is still going to be 12v power, so that's not going to change the brightness of the LEDs. If you want to change their intensity then swap in different valued resistors. The higher the value the lower the intensity.
 
dude, you are awesome...any pics of your interior with your 3 LEDs on?

Also, where would you recommend I run the wire? behind the right or left a-pillar, or does it matter?

thanks
 
Mazda 3 Map light

If I wanted to hardwire my Valentine one radar detector to these map light wires, any thoughts on how to do it?
 
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dude, you are awesome...any pics of your interior with your 3 LEDs on?

Also, where would you recommend I run the wire? behind the right or left a-pillar, or does it matter?

thanks

Sorry, didn't see this reply. Click my sig for my cardomain and there are pictures there.
 
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