Interior Lighting Upgrade options

[CPDST]

Hi,

I live in New Zealand, but the Starlet community over here isn't nearly as helpful/useful with sorting littke issues out like interior issues - the community over here (In NZ) mostly deals with making your Starlet go faster - while that's maybe not such a bad thing, for a car that I use as my daily commuter, going faster is perhaps a little unecessary, when stuck in morning and evening traffic.

I've just purchased a 1996 Starlet Reflet X 5 speed manual - It's a fairly well equipped car, with remote central locking, power windows, power mirrors, A/C, and a (Non-functional) "Air Purifier". However, the interior light is absolutely pathetic.

When I got the car a couple of weeks ago, the interior light wasn't going (We tried replacing the globe, which didn't work.), so we took the car to the auto electrician, who got it working. Even with it working though, there isn't very much light, to say the least!

While looking around these forums, I've seen other people have replaced the incandescent globe with an LED globe that fits into the same fitting, I believe these are called "SMD" LED's. I've also seen someone else replace the globe with a 24 LED panel that fits within the diffusor/cover. What I'm interested to know is, what sort of wattage do these non-standard solutions, draw. The owners book for the Starlet says that the interior globe should be an 8 watt fitting (Why they chose such an odd size is beyond comprehension) - do these LED fittings exceed that wattage? And what is the lifepspan of these fittings in a car. I'm mainly worried about the wattage being too high and blowing the circuit because in a previous car I owned, while trying to fix the interior light, while trying to fix the interior light, and while using a multimeter, which I forgot to change the setting on before taking a different reading, I managed to blow the interior light circuit. When the interior light circuit blew, it also took out the key buzzer, and the radio, and the door open light. None of the fuses blew either, and the short resulted in me having do disconnect the battery (Should have done that in the first place!) before it drained out. (This required a somewhat expensive trip to the auto electrician to fix) So as you can imagine, I'm not too eager to blow any more circuits!

Any experience people have with these sorts of interior lights ad any caveats/warnings, I would very much appreciate hearing about.

Regards,

Craig.

[JLF88]

I wouldn't worry about the wattage to be honest. The Smd LEDs work great, I advise at least a 12 led one for sufficient lighting. I've Replaced every bulb on the inside of the car with LEDs and an Smd festoon

[CPDST]

Hi There,

Thanks for your reply - would these be the sorts of thing you're talking about? :

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/T10-Car-Interior-Day-White-48-5050-SMD-LED-Light-Bulb-Lamp-Dome-Panel-12V-/251457537036?pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item3a8c09840c

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/T10-Car-Interior-White-48-5050-SMD-LED-Light-Bulb-bulbs-Lamp-Dome-Panel-12V-/251469138246?pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item3a8cba8946

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/T10-5050-SMD-48-LED-Panel-Car-Interior-Dome-Light-Lamp-Bulb-Adapter-White-12V-/301113807575?pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item461bc812d7

I've also noticed after a little testing this evening, that when the light is on the "ON" setting, it is significantly brighter than when it is on the "DOOR" setting - is this the way it's meant to be, and if so, will this affect how the LED will work - I've heard they don't respond well to voltage variation.

Thanks,

Craig.