check out this thread i made a while back...
http://invision.aleromod.com/index.php?sho...39&#entry253139

cherrington17 came thru with a lot of information and his own threads about interior lighting...

I was looking around and cathodes claim to be brighter than neons, has anyone here used cathodes in their car and do they last the same because i thought someone said they burn out quicker than neons. Are neon tubes my best option for what i want to do or should i use cathodes or something different?

personally, i've used cathodes, and they are decently bright..but i think led's are better.

and yes, cathodes will last longer then neons.

if your going to put them on the roof heres a fair warning from someone with experiance in retarded placment for neons. if your going to put them up there, DONT drive with them on. you have no idea how hard a cop will nail ya for them being up there. if ya dont belive me, give a shot. personally, im going to go with cherrington's idea and use super bright LED's from oznium and make them myself and put them in somewhere where i cannot get nailed for it.

i currently have a 15" green tube in the middle of the roof and i havent gotten pulled over yet so either its not too bright or i havent seen many cops with it on.

I was told by a retired sheriff that 5-o won't pull you over with interior lights inless they are red or blue and maybe yellow... due to law enforcement and emergency vehicles. which makes sense... i think you'll be fine with green.

look at my pics.. i have red and blue "themes" on a switch... and i've never been looked at twice...

but w/ hidden led's, its more like accent lighting and not a full blown neon in the middle of the roof...

the cops here are anal as hell when it comes to the lighting of a car. i see ppl get pulled over for having those lights on the sprayer on the hood of a car. cops are a buch of damn idiots around here to! wont do crap about ppl going around wrecking ppls things but they wont think twice about pulling over someone while there WALKING and minding there own business (i know b/c i was one of them hahaha and no i dont do drugs) i was simply going home from work. lol

you guys are lucky cops dont nail ya for lighting b/c its a pain in the ass around here.

Yea that makes sense because i've scene people who have tried to do the red and blue strobes in their headlights to act like a cop so green should be safer, i guess ill find out the hard way.

^do NOT put strobes in your lights unless they are for show purposes. you WILL get pulled over regardless. its very dangerous. (and way to expensive for something so lame)

whoa didn't mean to scare ya, i was just saying how i saw someone do it (going with blue and red theme earlier). I just want green glow inside.

Here's mine, make sure you check out all the pics, they're spread out throughout that thread as my work progressed.

http://invision.aleromod.com/index.php?showtopic=15360

What did you need to do to get that roof compartment off where you put in the blue lighting?

i have the 3 volt LEDs and i string em together 4 at a time in series to equal the 12 volts supplied. I have put them by the feet or the passengerr and driver, 8 of them in the overhead light, and 8 in the rearview mirror. Most are good, but i've had at least one burn out in my driverside of the rearview mirror about 4 times now, any idea why this would keep happenin?

ya, alternator supplies more than 12 volts....so you're overvolting them. alt usually runs at ~13-14 volts

so why's it only happenin to the drivers side mirror bulbs, is this one the first in a circuit or something? And whats the solution then, put the resistors on each one and run them all in parallel, that sounds like alot more work and alot more wire!

could also be bad wiring running to that spot. (could GM actually have done that?!?.. but they make PERFECT cars!)

if you have a bad ground, or the occasional voltage spike going through that spot, that might be whats causing your problem.

try hooking them up the same, just run a small wire over to the passager side of the mirror, and connect your power there. see if it fixes it. just completely bypass the potentially "bad" spot.

or, by sheer luck alone, maybe every LED you put in there was just bad. with all the ones i've gone though, i've had my share of ones that just sucked outta the bag.

I didn't take it off, I just fed the wires from behind, and there's a tiny hole punched in the headliner, impossible to see.

because it's a minor overvolt and some of the LEDs may be able to take it for a while. and when one goes out it will majorly overvolt the rest and they'll all burn out. and yes, resistors would be best. MUCH more stable way of using LEDs