Looking to do illuminated cupholder

kenchan

i'd drill small 2mm holes maybe 10mm apart along near the titanium lip and wrap a LED strip from behind.

jikhead

I think LED's would be too bright for this project, but you could put a dimmer switch on them. I spent about $20 w/shipping and an extra wire to gauge which size I wanted to use. I'll be sending the .26mm back in exchange for a red .22mm wire. I sent the retailer some pics and he agreed that red would be a closer match to the Z's orange illumination lights. I may purchase another cupholder, as I got some super glue on my fingers and some transferred to the silver/titanium plastic lip on the top. So I won't bother with additional pics until I replace it with the red wire. I also went down to purchase a handy hands helper/solder station as the last few times I've done some soldering, it has been a real bitch. These holders are great and make soldering so much easier and safes time.

jikhead

So I got my exchanged EL wire and let me say that the red wire is a perfect match to the Z's illumination. If anyone plans to do this, be sure to get red wires and NOT orange wires.

See the orange wire HERE.
See the new red wire (not installed) HERE.

Hawk6

Looks nice. You gonna post a step by step DIY?

jikhead

I will if I don't get any requests to do this for others. I was hoping to make a few extra bucks on the side doing this little mod. So if anyone is interested at all, let me know so I can start working up my costs and come up with a total price. Thanks.

jikhead

Updated the PICS with the finished product.

Vbp6US

Looks good man. How much?

bdavis89

DIY
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Post a full DIY!

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jikhead

Just wanted to post up a reminder to anyone that may be doing this DIY: make sure you secure and tuck away the wiring that is around the cupholder.

I had McDonald's overfill my drink last week and had some spillage that went down underneath the cupholder and got on my connecting wire. It shorted out the next day, frying both the EL wire and the inverter. When the inverter blew, the AC started pouring electrical smoke into the cabin of the car and really freaked me out.

864Zbeast

That's pretty nice man!

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Skrew

What was the site you used to order the .22 red EL glow wire? I wanted to use the same one since the coloring is spot on. FYI, as others stated, you did a great job!

jikhead

EL wire, CCFL's, and Cold Cathode kits High Quality Low Prices!

NOTE: I'm redoing my cupholder again as I speak. After fixing the previous problem with the converter/wire shorting out....I ran into another problem a few weeks later (just now getting around to fixing it). The two most recent wires that I bought to fix the short didn't have the cut-end sealed up. My previous red (aka orange) and previous orange (aka yellow) wires were both melted/sealed up by the dealer/seller. I'm not sure why these didn't get sealed up. Anyway, the sweat from the drinks in the cupholder made its way into the wire and it damaged the phosphor element. It doesn't really light up anymore (even driving home last night it looked like it was simply not on, but could see a faint light on spots of the wire).

So what you want to do when you receive your wires, check to see if the end is sealed up. If it is not, you could order the end caps that these guys sell but it may push the end of the out and patrude out of the cupholder lip a tad bit. Instead, you may opt to do what I just did tonight: I dipped it in clear silicone. I've given it two coats/dip and I think I will give it one more coat before bed. Squeeze a small blob of silicone on something, then just dip it lightly and use your finger to smooth it out around the wire. The very end should create a good round bubble like seal on it.

If you ever need to redo it and need to clean up/scrap off the old glue...I used some sanding/grinding bits for a Dremel to clean everything up. You're going to obviously scrape up the original finish of the inside of the cupholder; but nothing you can really do about that and you'll never really see it or notice it anyway. I would also wear some latex gloves and/or also use a small flat head screwdriver to use to press the wire up snug and tight in the lip of the cupholder.

One last note: I may have previously mentioned this in an earlier post...but take your time gluing the wire to the cupholder and glue in half-inch to one-inch segments at a time. Do not attempt to glue the wire at once...you will regret it. I'm also laying down my bead of glue in a dot/dash form smalley spaced apart from each other instead of laying down a long straight bead of glue.

jikhead

So I'm done....redid my wire for the 4th total time on this project. It's still been a cheap project...however I hope this was the last repair job.

jikhead

I'm starting to wonder if the super glue/Loctite glue is eating threw the covering of the wire. Starting to see the same blotches I previously saw when liquid crept into the wire. Using silicone may be a different option to secure the wire to the lip. I'll check back in a few weeks.

jikhead

So here I am again...as per my last post the EL wire eventually went out. I'm waiting on new wires to arrive and I will attempt AGAIN...but will attempt to glue the wire down this time with silicone. It will likely require that I tape the wire to hold it down until the silicone can dry. We'll see.....