Internal LED mod

Very!

Look at the headlamp switch, and an earth with your multimeter? Depends if you want it at dip, full, both, or sidelights? There will be power with sidelights from lit up switches/heater controls, etc or your radio/cd?

Yes, I kind of worked that bit out, and even worked out that 600R should be ok ;-)

Both/all would be ideal, but the problem is the headlamp switch is on the indicator stalk. There's just a mass of wires coming out of the steering column section.

Hmm that's a good point, I will have a closer poke around to see if I can see anything obvious. The radio is one of the built-in jobbies so I can't get to it very easily.

If that fails I guess just having it come on whenever the ignition is on would be ok.

WHY???

cos blu lites evrywhere luks wikkid innit.

The Passat W8 has some orange LED's that are mounted in the main internal light that come on with the headlights to give a soft illumination to the dear leaver.

Dunno really, just a little project to make my car a bit different to everyone elses. Guess it could be useful for finding stuff inside your car whilst driving in the dark. Saw it on a few cars whilst I was in Japan and thought it was a good idea. Not talking anything stupidly bright, just a couple of dim LEDs to make the footwell area not pitch-black.

I was thinking a dull orange actually to match the colour of all the other dials and buttons!

Try a Haynes manual, they have wiring diagrams in the back of them. Just hire one from a library rather than buying it.

Nick

oh, just find which fuse gets power when you put the lights on (black lead of the multimeter to grounded screw/whatever in car, read lead to fuse) and tap into that. would be wise to put a 3amp fuse inline with the leds.

I'd say take a feed from the 'illumination' wire that goes to the back of your stereo. IIRC it should be an orange wire - it's the only one that'll go +12v (give or take) with the lights on and nothing when they're off.

That way you won't need to fart about finding the wires at the headlight switch for sidelights, dim, dip etc - the illumination wire to the stereo is live whenever the dash lights etc are on.

Cheers

Dave P

Utterly trivial. 12v ones will probably burn out so you need the low voltage type with a suitable resistor.

The best place to get a feed from is the side lights / dash, and I mean there is a lightbulb in the front, rear or numberplate that you can get a +12v feed from. If the dash is easy to get into, it will have lights in there as well. Then just hook this +12v volt to the resistor and led(s), the other end of the led being earthed to whatever is convenient (bodywork will do).