Acdronin's Cool Blue UFO LED grill lighting how-to

I have fielded a number of inquiries about my lighting that I did in my front grill but I never did do a write up on the project so in responding to a TW member this morning I realized I could just post my response as a thread for the rest of you guys to enjoy.



Now a legal disclaimer, in California where I live and probably just about everywhere else, it is illegal to have any other color of light shining forwards from the vehicle other that white or yellow/amber on a public road. Now I could split hairs and say it's not actually "shining" out of the front of the truck but rather "glowing" but I fear that subtle distinction would probably be lost on a traffic cop or a traffic court judge so I would not recommend trying to find that one out. If you do and you win, by all means let us know! In addition me thinks that local LEO's would probably be much more sensitive to seeing red or blue lights shining out of a truck as opposed to say yellow, green or any other color. Since a lot of the tuner/ricer crowd is into LED's it's not anything new but I would advise staying on the right side of all applicable laws.

With that being said, I did park the truck on a very dark beach and walk about a mile down the beach with just the LEDs on and I reckon that one could still see the glow for possibly up to two miles or better. I couldn't tell what in the hell it was at a mile away but I could definitely see it. It creeped me the hell out and I knew what they were! So if being mistaken for a UFO is your thing, these babies are your ticket!


A lot of folks thought I installed blue LEDs inside the Hellas, that was the clever part of the project, the lights are mounted in such a way that they shine up and into the reflectors of the Hellas and that's what creates the cool blue glow, you can't actually see the lights themselves unless you open the hood. I wanted to light up the Hellas and the radiator area and I actually installed two of them in the hood scoop as well that don't shine outwards but again make a blue glow.

Here are the type of lights I used, they come in two sizes, the three LED pod (which is the ones shining into the Hellas) and the four LED pod, which you'll see where I mounted those in a sec. Some of the pics are from another project where I installed lighting under the hood in white LEDs, the color is different but the parts are the same.

These are the lights I got from Frys Electronics


But Ozium online carries the same pods here: http://www.oznium.com/led-string-modules
now I didn't know of these at the time but I suppose the same project could be done with these Ozium LED 'Bolts' here: http://www.oznium.com/led-bolt

BUT, here's the catch, I bought some of the bolts and the blue was different from the pod LEDs, I asked Ozium about it and he said they are different because they are different manufacturing processes. So the pods have a brighter shade of blue while the bolts are a darker almost purplish black-light kind of shade, which is really cool but just doesn't match the other blue. I figured the bolts could be used instead of the pods and it could be easier to install to shine up into the big lights but I would say either use all bolts or all pods and not mix them. IDK if the same thing applies to the amber or the other colors but I would be willing to bet it does.

So here is the process for doing the pods, the pics are for the four LED pods but I did the same thing for the threes.

My electrical kit, I cannot say enough about the little Radio Shack butane soldering iron, absolutely the best 25 bucks I have ever spent. The best part is the blowby from the torch head heats the shrink tubing up really well.



separated and stripped the wires to be soldered



after soldering I slid the shrink tubing over each of the wires



Then I slid a larger shrink tube over both of them to act as a kind of boot





Now, the manufacturer says they are water resistant and I figured I would make the best soldering job I could in terms of water resistance, it turns out to be a good thing because up in Oregon about two weeks ago I ended up in some very deep water which blasted the grill area, pushed the Hellas out of adjustment and came up and over the hood/windshield and roof. I ended up doing this twice to get out of the jam I was in. There was moisture in the Hellas and in my headlights but the LEDs worked fine so I'm pretty happy.

Then I carefully enlarged the holes to accept a larger sheet metal screw, the screws I ended up using for the under the hood lighting were the ones you buy to hold downspouts together on your house, the ones on the grill are longer ones since I wasn't worried about poking a screw up thru the hood. I predrilled the holes in the grill surround and it worked like a charm.



Here is where I mounted the three LED pods inside the grill. Now I have a billet grill which is flush mounted forwards. The billets themselves block the light from shining directly outward when you are standing in front of the truck looking downwards at it. If you have a deep dish Satoshi I am not sure how you would mount them for the same effect since the area where I mounted them behind the grill (on mine), would actually be in front of the grill on a deep satoshi. I would experiment with one of the lights by powering it up and holding it in different spots inside the grill area to figure out a mounting option. Me thinks it would be possible to maybe mount them shining inwards as opposed to upwards and that enough of the glow would catch the big light's reflectors? I'm sure this could be solved with at most a trip to the local hardware store for some brackets. I took a lot of time routing the wires and using screw in wire hold downs, zip ties and the plastic corrugate split tubing to make everything as neat and orderly as possible. I started with the ones furthest away from the power source first and soldered the lights together in a daisy chain as I went.



I mounted two of the four LED pods on either side of the grill shining inwards to provide some additional glow in the radiator area. Again they are mounted in such a way that you cannot see the lights directly from the outside. Note the connectors on the wires, I did this so that the grill could be fully removed after unplugging the wires.



Here they are centered on the Hellas



and the finished product



The rest is your standard stuff with wiring a 12V circuit, I used a fuse and mounted the switch inside the cab.

 

Been admiring this setup for some time. I originally thought you put halos in the Hellas. Then I thought maybe LEDs... I was so focused on the Hellas I didn't notice the grill being lit up, real nice. Appreciate the write-up!

 

You're welcome! If you take this one on be sure to post some pics

 

I've been wondering how you did this. Look great IMO. Thanks for the write up!

 

Thanks! and you're welcome