Suggested by another member, I added these to my cup holders. Made a big difference in appearance while having a factory look. He stated he hooked his up to the connection in the bin, however I hard wired mine into the ambient lighting.
Here is a quick How-To. As always I take no responsibility if you **** it up.
Step 1.
Disconnect negative on battery.
Step 2.
Remove user control panel in center console using trim removal tool.
Step 3.
Disconnect connector at forward most part of compartment.
Step 4.
Use Positap connectors to tap into wires.
Step 5.
Drill 2 holes in cup holder to run the wires through.
Step 6.
Drill hole in side of "pass through tunnel"
Step 7.
Run wires from front to cup holders making appropriate connections. Tuck all wires using wire tie mounts, be sure leave slack so that the housing can slide back and forth. Reconnect connector.
Final Results...very happy with the outcome, also since this is tapped into the ambient lighting, these can be dimmed and will only turn on when the LED bar and/or headlights are turned on.
Chod, incase you can't read my signature I have leather seats, not cloth. And this is far from rice. I refuse to go down that path. They have a factory look. Maybe I should take a few more pictures for you since you can't seem to tell.
I have a C model and I don't think this looks ricey at all. Having a C model doesn't make me any more "classy" than someone with a S model either. Looks like BLU200S has provided many How-To's to this forum so far, all of which look to be improvements to the car, not ricer add ons
That looks good Blu200S. Looks very professional. I've noticed more cars are having these as either an option or standard in them. I wonder if Chrysler will eventually offer these in a future 200.
Respdoc, I'm not looking to have the SAME effect of the Durango's cup holders, unfortunately that isn't possibly unless the cup holders are interchangeable... if they are then there's no need to even do anything other than swap them out... what I'm looking to do is to get a similar effect of those, but at the BOTTOM, where the cups sit, INSIDE of the cup holders. Very similar to what you have achieved with the rings/disc mounted LEDs (yes I originally saw your post, and that was before I had the thought of making any electrical modifications). Instead of 2 discs separated it would be similar in visuals of the outline of a peanut, and just 1 strand of EL wire that will run along that silhouette... Since I will be making modifications with installation of EL wire elsewhere in the car, I figured it would be easier to do this installation at the same time... In no way have I regarded to them as being inferior products or "riced" as another member has posted. I want to see what the outcome of it would be if I did it MY way instead of this way achieved by you and Blu.
IGalione, I understand what respdoc is getting at. Also remember that the cup holders are on on two seperate planes. The rear one sits up higher than the front one. This may prove difficult with the El Wire. Not saying it can't be done, but the disc route will probably provide a cleaner look.
A little off subject .
I was thinking of changing the drive gear light from orange to LED white or blue.
When you had the panel of did you notice if you could easily change out the orange lite ?
i'm just now reading this, did a sizing of the insert for the cup holders, and the interior is 2.75 (2-3/4") and without the insert the diameter measures 3"... So I ordered those, in cool white, I may hold off, because I'm thinking of trading mine in and looking for one that will have the safety tec features as well as a sunroof... Got kinda jealous of a few people who leased theirs after me, but theirs were built to order and they got white just as me... want to stick out, everyone at the job is getting it now after seeing mine.
Ahh ok, I saw those, but looking at the sticky material in them, I figured they would be a hassle, the ones I purchased were from eBay, and has the 3M VHB adhesive, so it should STICK for a while. they should be in tomorrow, and I should be able to finish everything up.
Disks look good. Only thing I did different was used some of that black heat-shrink wrap over the wires to help them attempt to blend into the black plastic more.
Suggested by another member, I added these to my cup holders. Made a big difference in appearance while having a factory look. He stated he hooked his up to the connection in the bin, however I hard wired mine into the ambient lighting.
Run wires from front to cup holders making appropriate connections. Tuck all wires using wire tie mounts, be sure leave slack so that the housing can slide back and forth. Reconnect connector.
Final Results...very happy with the outcome, also since this is tapped into the ambient lighting, these can be dimmed and will only turn on when the LED bar and/or headlights are turned on.
This is nice. I do miss the LED rings in the cupholders my 300S had. The front ones were heated/cooled and the rings had 3 colors - ice blue to match the rest of the interior backlighting, dark blue if you turned on the "cool" feature and red if you turned it to "heat". Even the rear cupholders in the fold-down console were lit by LED rings. I was really hoping this car would at least have the illumination when I got it! I knew they probably could never add heated/cooled with the sliding console though. If I was good with wiring I would definitely do this. OP your blue rings match the blue in the gauges very well!
Very easy to do even with the wiring. You could even just run the two wires to a cigarette lighter adapter plug-in (since there is one very close to the bottom of the cups) to make it that much simpler.
You can only hide the wires by either taping them (and doing a good job) to the interior of the center console, or using like a 3m wire holder clip as posted on one of the earlier pages. @cschmid t the positap are just a type of wire tapping item, I personally used the T connector style wire taps, and when I connected mine, I connected it right into the dimming circuit (found under the knob control console)
I wish I had those connectors to tap into my ambient lights (I did exactly that only I separated the wires and added connectors) but not only do I have a very clean installation that ties into the flow of the ambient lighting, I ran two others to the rear as well. Taking it a step further, I attached connectors to all of my lights so I can interchange them as I wish, all running from that one light under the center console's control panel. Next project is to change the dash lighting to red... ONEDAY!