My lights came in the mail from superbrightleds.com this afternoon. Great looking construction, quality bulbs. None were dead on arrival. Install literally took 5 or 10 minutes. My scheme; Door lights - Red Map lights - White/Red/White Rear Dome - Red The red lights go on when you open the door. White lights can be used any other time with the push button. The red lights emulate an airplane, submarine, or Audi. It's the easiest color on the eyes and has a perfect red shade. I was afraid high powered red LEDs might be overpowering, but the shade of red is perfect. I get a subtle, mysterious glow from the outside. The pictures don't do it justice. Ladies and Gents- I present to you, The Rocketeer.
Have you found any cool ones for the exterior? Like a small kit which could appear like the 2010 Mercedes C Class LED lights (below the main headlights)?
I toiled over colors for a while. Here's what I concluded: Blue is garish. I crossed that off my list of choices once I realized this. While it may look cool for a week or two, it might strain your eyes. Again, it's showy and not practical at all. However, one cool combination using blue would be white overhead lights and blue door lights, but that's as much blue as I would use. White is really practical and vibrant - it literally looks brighter than the daylight. But it's also rather boring. There's no "effect" per se. Red is both practical and cool, but not showy like blue and not boring like white. It has it's function in that it's an easy color on the eyes. That's a great excuse to go red. Above all, I really like how mine can be red AND/OR white. In a way I got the best of both worlds. I would highly recommend this setup and I don't think I'll be changing it.
Blue garish, huh? Hmm, I'll have to give my idea some more thought then. I was thinking red for the doors (I liked the red lights on my old 3000GT), and map lights (since they are most likely to be used while driving, and would spare my night vision), with blue for the dome. Anything is probably better than the green neon tubes I had in my Probe back in the day. :shudder:
Thanks for the comments all. Hmmm, are you saying you drive with the map lights on? If that's the case, I highly recommend red or blue since they're darker colors and less obtrusive and less reflective. Therefore they won't distract while driving as white or amber would. I think a red/blue combo would be unique but too busy, particularly if the blue and red lights are ever on simultaneously. Then you'd get a purple color. (If my white and red lights are on at the same time I get a washed-out pink haha). My red doesn't give much light. If I'm looking for something in the dark, red can't help me (that's why I like my optional white map lights!). And if I remember my chemistry correctly, I'm guessing the blue would give even less light. As I discussed, this is advantageous if you drive with your dome or map lights on (though driving with NO interior lights on is the best), but 99% of it is for show. I still stand my decision to use red. I'm loving it and having to look for excuses to drive at night. I see blue on a lot of kidz' cars. I feel it's going out of style, phasing out maybe. The 90s was when people were doing really flashy things to their car. Nowadays, practical is cool. Red marries both. In fact, I see red being the future, lol. I know that sounds lame, but red seems to be the direction auto companies may go. Audi has already adopted this feature and what better car to be ahead of the curve too, than the Prius. But in the end it's ultimately your decision! It's a cheap, easy, and flexible mod, one that you can have some fun with and change as you go. Let us know what you decide to do! :rockon:
I don't normally drive with interior lights on, however, there is the occasional need for my wife to find something in the dark on cross-country trips. We are thinking, however, that using your combination may be better, since I can turn on the red dome light first, and if that isn't good enough, resort to the map light, which will at least be focused away from me. Too bad they don't have a intermediate between cool white and straight blue. Then again, I could buy both and use soldering irons to swap individual chips around on the board to get that. Actually, from my time on a sub, I can say that red is -very- visible, but only if your eyes can adjust to it. I'm not sure if that is possible with oncoming traffic headlights. I'll probably give it a shot, and if it does not work out, maybe try the blue/white thing. Might match my seaside exterior/gray interior better, too.
Gotcha. You could do blue door lights with white maps/domes. I know that looks cool. It's good to know red is visible when you're eyes adjust to it. I always thought it was only effective if everything else was pitch black, which is extremely rare in a car. I'll leave the lights on and try it sometime. Most of us though are impatient and cant wait for our eyes to adjust so it's nice to have white light available somewhere, as you've planned for. Man youve served on subs? That is cool. You be 4real playa!
Like I was saying, though, it may depend on not being constantly blinded by oncoming traffic. On the sub, we used red lights in the sleeping areas, because it was pitch black otherwise. It takes about 10 seconds after walking in, and then suddenly, the whole room seems to pop out at you. Then again, I have a projection alarm clock that uses a red LED, and I can still see the projection on the ceiling fairly well at night, despite the white light from a daycare center next door. I like the color combination you're using. I'll probably try something similar, and if it doesn't work out quite like I expected, maybe I'll try cool white map lights, blue door lights, and pull out the soldering iron and try 1:1 or 3:1 cool white:blue on the two dome lights. If I could approximate the same tint as typical non-extreme blue HIDs (~8000k I think), that would be perfect. Still useable, but still obviously bluish.
If you actually Google search "with you right here i'm a rocketeer," which is a pretty popular search right now, my thread shows up as #2. LOL, I never planned that....I swear!
Haha thanks. It's not so much that I like red, but when I go for the cosmetic mods I try to make sure they're consistent. Otherwise its easy to go overboard, spend a lot of money and before you know it, the car looks like an incoherent mess.
Matt's Rocketeer theme has just been stolen. Although white led being added to trunk area as well. Spanks for the idea playa