Interior Light Upgrade

[bosebase]

Does anyone know the lamp type and quanity for upgrading the interior roof lighting on a Titanium X with glass roof?

 

Looking to replicate the LED look of the latest SMax.

 

Any help welcome.

 

Thanks in advance.

[GaryM]

Do not know what the SMAX looks like but my 06 Galaxy the interior lamps and reading lamps all vary depending on thier location. A good source for retrofit lamps is here.

 

Beaware however if replacing the external lamps there are also sorts of strange monitoring currents that run through the lamps and this can result in situations where lamps show up as failed or never turn off etc.

[bobbyrabs]

i replaced the festoon bulbs with led, beware but you will fuse electric mirrors windows interior lights if you fit it the wrong way also the led bulbs do not go fully out perhaps just the bulbs i bought dont know the way i got round this was to replace first and second row with led and leave the old festoon in the third row seat and then they go fully ou.t if you replace all three rows with led they do not go out fully, the difference in the light is fantastic Edited December 23, 2012 by bobbyrabs

[GaryM]

Yep pretty much what I expected. There are small leakage currents that flow in many of the lighting circuits and because LEDs need so little current they can still give out a little light even though the circuit would look like it is fully off with a normal lamp.

 

LEDs sold as CAN-bus friendly have a dropper resistor in parallel with the LED to disipate this leakage current, defeates the purpose a little (wasting energy) but still the LEDs generally give off more light and react quicker. You often see this when cars are breaking, the high level LED brake lamp seems to light a fraction sooner than the conventional lamps. Leaving one normal bulb in circuit can often overcome this issue as you have found. BTW also works with dimmable mains LEDs that flicker when dimmed. Leaving one normal lamp in provides enough load for the dimmer switch to work properly.

 

LEDs are polarity sensitive so do have to be connected the right way round to work but should not fuse anything if connected the wrong way. However the way some of the LED bases are made can cause shorts if not fitted correctly.

[bobbyrabs]

great advice thankyou good luck replacing

[Ratso]

i replaced the festoon bulbs with led, beware but you will fuse electric mirrors windows interior lights if you fit it the wrong way also the led bulbs do not go fully out perhaps just the bulbs i bought dont know the way i got round this was to replace first and second row with led and leave the old festoon in the third row seat and then they go fully ou.t if you replace all three rows with led they do not go out fully, the difference in the light is fantastic

 

I have literally just come on here to search for this exact problem on my MK3 Galaxy with panoramic roof.

 

I was wanting to replace all the interior lights with LED's for the nice white light rather than the standard more orange white colour. I had replaced the boot/trunk loading lights, the second and third row wedge base bulbs (inc the map reading lights in each unit) and noticed the faint glow when the lights were supposed to be off. They switch on and off fine but on the door activated setting they never fully go off and I was wondering why, this thread answered that question.

 

Although I did also notice another problem. While I was replacing the front Festoon type bulbs and the two wedge base map bulbs I noticed all the interior lights stopped working i.e all the roof lights (inc map lights and vanity mirror lights) and footwell lights but also the drivers door module no longer works at all neither does it illuminate in the dark. 

 

I'm assuming I've blown a fuse but as it's dark now and I also found out the fuse box under the glove box uses them damn mini blade fuses (which I have none of handy) I gave up and came on here trying to find out what had happened. 

 

Can you please let me know which fuse I have blown to cause the door module to not work or illuminate and is it indeed the 10A mini blade fuse shown in the manual (F17)? Also why does fitting an LED the wrong way round in the front light unit affect the drivers door module and why would fitting a LED light bulb the wrong way round fuse anything to start with? I had to swap the bulbs in the rear seats a few times to get the polarity right but it didn't blow anything till I got the the front light unit.

[bobbyrabs]

your right f17 mini fuse i had the same problem kept blowing fuses if put in the wrong way, nightmare, why this happens unknown also had the problem of lights not going fully out solved it by leaving third row festoon as it was good luck to you get a good suply of fuses when you replace fuse everything will work as normal