Looking to do illuminated cupholder (Almost Complete)
 

I created an illuminated cup holder in my WRX by using a simply LED from Radio Shack. I'd like to the Z one better, by using a very thin LED wire/rope/etc similar to the piping on the doors and dash of the Cadillac CTS that illuminates. If anyone sees some lighting material like this, please let me know.

illuminated cup holder fabrication & installation
 

I am not sure of the Cadillac CTS door/dash illumination; however, it sound unique. Could you post pics of what your implying so one can understand what the lighting look like?

I think the way to go with what I want to do is to use neon wire/EL wire. I haven't been able to find any LED's similar to the neon wire stuff. I haven't settled on anything just yet. I'm in the process of tinting my windows, but it's been in the 100's so I haven't finished this task yet. Google neon wire and you'll see what I'm talking about.

I know that pep boys sells strips of tiny led's that are on like a peice of tape, u could attach that inside the holder, idk just my idea

Maybe you can implement an "angel eye" ring inside the cup holder for more evenly diffused lighting.

-Phuong

Im willing to try something when I get my 370z, but Its gotta have holes drilled in the cup holder and the LED's behind it because when you slip in a cup, you dont want to damage the LED's. Not something I may approve of, heh.

Regarding last two posts...

This is along the lines of what I´m looking to do. I´ve been in Mexico for 4 weeks, and got another 2 weeks to go before I get home and have some time to start tinkering with this mod.

Reviving this thread, as I'm thinking of tackling this mod. EL wire is in abundance these days....even though I will likely be selling my Z before too long.

Ordered the parts to do this. I'll post up pics when completed. I may also put together build-kits for these, if I can find a cheap enough supplier to put these together. Buying the parts as I have done, doesn't create much profit I could stand to gain on them at a price people would likely pay. Be back in about a week.

There's another company called Plasma Glow. They have all sorts of lighting stuff at fairly good prices.

Just in case, there is one OEM 370z Cup holder selling on ebay right now. In case someone wanted to have a spare one to play around.

I'm just about done with this. I'm posting up pics of the EL wire taped in the cup holder; as I purchased a .22mm and a .26mm wire. The .26mm size is newer and supposed to be 20% brighter. However, the .22mm is plenty bright enough and really a better fit. The .26mm protrudes from the lip of the cup holder and could give you problems with larger size cups; like a big size from Taco Bell or say Route 44 from Sonic. Since the .22mm is plenty bright, I'm going with the smaller size. I'll post more pics after it is glued in place but I need to get in bed as I start a new job tomorrow morning.

.22mm EL Wire

.26mm EL Wire

So you'll notice that the orange wire looks yellowish up against the orange interior lighting of the Z. I'm checking with the retailer about whether red would be a closer match.

That's still pretty cool, regardless. How much did it cost?

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Updated the PICS with the finished product.

Looks good man. How much?

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Post a full DIY! :tiphat:

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.

That's pretty nice man!

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.....

I've updated my pictures folder with some additional day time photos so you can more-or-less see what/how I did this. The new pics include shots after I pulled the wire off; cleaned the wire pieces and glue off with my Dremel tool. I'm currently sealing the tips of the new wire and will redo it, but this time gluing the wire down silicone instead of super glue.

https://skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx...731&parid=root

I've updated the pictures above with new wire silicone'd in place. Of course, you can't see much because I have tape holding it in place.

Updated the photos again; removed the tape and ran my finger over the wire a few times to remove excess and smooth out the silicone running along the bottom of the wire.

So I'm closely approaching a full month with my latest replaced EL wire using silicone. I can confirm that silicone is the way to go and to not use any type of super glue; as it will eat thru the wire and eventually destroy it.

thought this was pretty cool. How did you attach this to the car so that when you turn the car on/off the cup lights go out? Or are just using a switch to turn this on?

I was thinking of drilling small holes around the side of the holder and then wrapping the light around the the holes to let it shine threw. Not sure how that would look, but might be cool as well.

I have the positive wire taped into the illumination wire on the back of the stereo and it's grounded to a screw that holds the stereo in its bracket. I think my method would look better than your idea....just saying...no offense.