AO

What does it look like when its off?

SharkSkin

Nice!

Randy V

Sorta the same, but different.

My installation was a little bit different than what Andrew documented:

1) There was no need to trim the EL panel - it fit fine between the sill plate tab slots.

2) Use double-sided sticky tape to attach the EL strip to the underside of the sill plate. Did not remove the adhesive backing from the EL strip.

3) Routed both of the leads to the passenger side footwell light and spliced them in there.

Brett Jenkins

I got mine installed as well. Simple job and looks great, except for the off-color when they're not lit.

Only problem now, though, is that the driver's side will only come on when the passenger's side door is open as well. I'll have to check my wiring.

Big Dave

Resurrecting an old thread....I installed mine tonight. I like it!

Mark Stahl

Again resurrecting an old thread- a quick question. Apparently these EL panels can be trimmed. Does anyone know if you can also cut into them, as in place a cutout in the middle of one (as long as you avoid the leads?) Thanks.

Pfunde

You can cut/trim the length starting in the end with no wires ! You can also make it more slim by cutting in the part were the electrode is wide. I did so 8 month ago.....still works fine

Alan

Yes you can punch holes in the middle of it - but be carefull of sealing around them - its best to laminate the EL panel to keep the edges from sucking up moisture (creates dead spots) some come prelaminated - but if you cut them...

Alan

Mark Stahl

Great; thanks... that's just what I wanted to know. If I do it I'll be careful with sealing the edges.

-Mark

AO

Just wanted to let you all know that I've wanted to do this to the GT for a while now, but didn't want white to show thru the "928" when i have a red car. But luckily, the guy on ebay (Lumi-line) is now selling red (blue and green too I think) strips that are actually a better fit. They now completely fill the window on the door sills.

One note of caution, the little transformers he's shipping are different than before. I ordered 3 (1-spare) and 2 of the three transformers were bad. Just wanted to give you a heads up. Luckily I had a spare from before.

Anyway here's what it looks like!

1st pic is what they look like when off (battery is disconnected).

Alan

Andrew - monitor the inverters for temp when the car is running (so @ 13.5-14v) You may well find the lumi-line inverters are getting too hot.

I added a series resistance to mine to drop the voltage - this reduced the whine to inaudible and solved the overheating problem.

Danger is you just install and hide it away and then have an incendiary device stashed in the upholstry....!!

These were clearly not really designed for a car - even if they do run @ 12v (just not 14v)

Are the inverters like these? these were from Lumi-Line

Alan

AO

Alan-
No. Thery're much smaller. But what you say about the resistor is probably a good thing. Since I am electronically challenged, what resistor should I use? Would I just go to my friendly Radio Shack and ask for a 12V resistor?

AO

Oh... BTW, the seller's ID is global.asset.sales. Here's his pics of the inverters.

Alan

Andrew - obviously yours are different - still I suggest you monitor the temps - with the car running - give it a minute or so and see how hot it is...

Everyone should do this - also see how loud the whine is with the car running - its usually appreciably louder.

As for the value - it depends! The current consumption of the unit @13.5v would help you figure it out... I just used trial & error because a have a bunch of them around...

No such thing as a 12v resistor (but you knew that...just bait!).

You probably need a 1-2W+ power rated resistor (chunky) and likely values are in the 20-50 ohm range.

The trade off with using higher resistance is: lower brightness of the panel and will it even run @ 12v (car not running)

The advantages are: less power, less heat, less noise and longer panel life

I used 22ohm, 2W in mine. But values depend on the current it takes, how hot it gets, how low of a voltage it will oscillate at and how much noise it makes. My inverter worked reliably down to 8V - so I targetted a 3v drop on the resistor. My inverter was consuming about 180mA @ 13.5v (about 2.5W) or an effective resistance of about 75 ohms.

Since @ 12v I wanted to still have 9v across the inverter I used a 22ohm resistor in series with the +ve inverter supply. This drops about quarter of the total voltage (its not exactly a linerar effective resistance so close enough). At 14v supply the inverter gets about 10.5V and at 12V supply it gets about 9V.

Best way to figure this out is:
A) Measure the current to the inverter and calculate as above
B) Buy several resistors ~20-50 ohms and try them out
C) Measure the current to the inverter and tell me....

Alan

BTW my inverter is probably smaller than you think - my EL strip (for the GTS plate) is only 1" x 5".

AO

Alan... my head is spinning, but it does that quite regularly.

I'll definately monitor the inverters for heat. And I'll try to measure the current one of these days. But I'm coming back with more questions when I do, because I really am electronically challenged. I can slpice wires and hook stuff up, but I never to an EE class in college, so when i say I don't understand... I really mean it!