DIY Add Lights to Door Controls LX

Pauly99to17

Well-Known Member
9,176
6,578
Ville de Quebec
Vehicle Model
2012 LX
Body Style
Dyno Blue Pearl Sedan (FB2)
Warning: This DIY is not for everyone. You need to be a patient person because there is a lot of fiddling to adjust lights so that they shine evenly and correctly. If you decide to do this DIY, you do so at your own risk.

I wanted illuminated door driver's side controls like the Si. I also wanted to do the passenger's side, but was really disappointed to learn that no trim has this side lit up, so it can't be done. That side is a solid plastic piece that does not allow light through.

Well, at first I thought that if I switch the LX controls with the
Si controls I would get lights AND Auto Window for the driver's side. Woohoo, or so I thought. Unfortunately, neither one of those options worked. No plug and play. :( I was determined to have blue lights there so I decided to add my own LED lights. :)

I was lucky to get my hands on the Si controls for a VERY reasonable price from another member. ;)
I'm not sure how much that part will cost, but will update this when I find out.

Needed Materials

*
Si door control unit (to be updated with more info.)
* **At least 1 LED light of your colour choice. E-Bay has them with already added resistors. :)
You could also use an LED light strip and cut it to its shortest length (3 lights). I recommend doing it this
way for the large
motherboard, but you will still need 1 small LED for the window control button. See
below for more details about which lights to choose.

* Enough wire - 7 feet to be safe (I used 18 gauge)
* Electrician's tape
* 2 Marrettes
* A fuse tap and fuse
* A ring terminal (for ground)
* Zip ties

Required Tools

* A Dremmel Drill
* Plastic pry tools or equivalent (To take apart door and control unit). College Hills Honda has them.
* Phillips Screwdriver and a flathead screwdriver
* Scissors
* Wire strippers
* Socket with an extension (to take off ground bolt)

Directions
1) Use a plastic trim pry tool to take off the door control cover. Start at the front. There is a small slot where you can insert your tool. :confused:
Once you get it up slightly you can just use your fingers and slowly, but solidly lift up. The cover is held on by a few clips. It is not difficult at all to take off and snaps back into place easily too. :)

door1.sized.jpg


door2.jpg

Pay attention to that little lip on the far left of the cover. Lift the cover off by tilting the front end up higher so that lip can come out of its slot.
door3.jpg

2. Detach both plugs. The smaller one is straight forward. It has a small retaining tab to pinch and then you can pull it apart. The larger one, seen here, was tricky and took me a while to figure out because I was doing this at night and didn't see the arrow. Pinch the little tab and then turn the white piece to the right. The plug will detach automatically once you have pushed the white piece far enough.

Here you can see the little tab that needs to held. Then simply push that white piece in the direction of the indicated arrow. (See picture below)

4_G.sized.jpg

Here you can see the arrow pointing the direction to push.
door5.sized.jpg


door6.jpg



3. Take control unit off the cover (It's held on by small Phillips screws). Now you can take apart the control unit.
First take off the small Phillips screws. Then, use some sort of prying tools to open up the sides and
release the small tabs that hold it together.

***Note *** I didn't take any pictures of the drivers side control unit because I thought I was going to be able to do both sides at that time. The following pictures are of the passenger's side even though we now know that lights cannot be added here because the plastic is solid and doesn't allow light through. The pictures will give you an idea of what you are going to be doing to the driver's side though.

Remove screws.

door7.sized.jpg

Using thin pry tools to pry open sides so the holding tabs release. Open up the control unit into its two
pieces. Keep the motherboard to the side.

door8.sized.jpg

4. ***IMPORTANT STEP*** Carefully choose places to Dremmel holes where you will place lights. ***A LED strip light is probably the best way to do this so that you will only need to drill one hole at the end for your wire to go out. I did it the far more complicated way using individual LEDs. I don't recommend this way. Both ways will give you great looking illuminated effects however.
door9.sized.jpg

Here you can see the idea of how I tried to line up the lights under the buttons as best I could. Sometimes I could not Dremmel a hole because it was blocked by a motherboard switch inside. etc. Put the holes high up on the plastic as seen in the photo above. Too low and the holes wont line up and you'll be hitting the motherboard
components.

door10.sized.jpg

I used a 9 volt battery to test what the lights looked like in the dark.
 
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Dremmel a hole in the Power Window controls. This is the only picture I had. For this step, you must use a LED. The LED strip cut to 3 lights will be too large.
door11.sized.jpg


Just for reference, here are the two motherboards side by side.

Si one is on the left. They look identical except for the small, square LED in the middle at the bottom.
door12.sized.jpg


Even the plugs for the motherboards look identical. It must be the LX plug in the door that is missing wiring.
door13.sized.jpg


So, no "plug and play" with the LX because of the missing door plug wiring. This, I believe, stops both the light and Auto window from working. This is still only a theory however and would need confirmation.

5. Place lights into position and close controller unit. You will hear it snap back together when the tabs line up and pop back into place. Put screws back in.

6. Step #6 has two options:

a) Tap into a power wire and ground wire in the door cluster wires
OR, do what I did...
b) Run a wire through the door and into the cabin. This wire will be fuse tapped for power and grounded
behind fuse box.

Pry open the door panel and push wire through.
door14.sized.jpg


Here you can see the wire all the way through. Keep things clean and solidly positioned by Zip-tieing the wire to the other wire cluster going into the car.
door15.sized.jpg


Feed wire into the cabin going through the firewall here.
door16.sized.jpg


Above you can see where the wire goes through the fire wall and into the cabin. Once you have the wire fed through it will come out directly behind the fuse box (near the top of the fuse box). Split the wire and add the ring terminal to the negative ground wire. Ground the terminal to the ground bolt behind the fuse box located just to the right of where that wire came into the cabin. Attach a fuse tap to the positive wire and tap into fuse #35. This fuse controls the hazard light and climate control lights which means your door control lights will go on only at night when you turn on your headlights. :)

Now attach all your positive wires coming from each LED light or strip that you used and connect to the positive power wire. Use a marrette to secure and wrap with electrical tape to be as solid as possible. One could always solder these connections for added strength, but I chose not to. Do the same with all the negative wires and attach to the negative ground wire. Turn on your headlights and test to make sure your new lights are working. :)

Attach the control piece back to the cover by putting screws back. Now you just have to carefully put the cover back into the door. Obviously you will need to take care and make sure all the wires go nicely into place so none will be pinched when this piece snaps back into place. There is sufficient room so it is not difficult.

This is the only photo I could find. Pay no attention the the wiring because I was just testing the wires at this point.
door17.sized.jpg



Turn on your headlights and enjoy! :)
Pictures to be updated with the window controls lit up too.
door18.jpg


Here you can also see my door storage compartment lights. Maybe you want to add these too? :D
DIY....
http://9thcivic.com/forum/threads/door-storage-compartment-lights.6900/

Updated picture with window control lights lit up too.

P1040946.JPG

***More info added a little later in this thread about how to light up the passenger side controls. Read on....
 
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@webby Maybe the title should say 2012 LX? Did the controls change with the 2013 refresh?

@CollegeHillsHonda
Could I get part numbers and prices to add to the DIY?
The Si door controls (Are the 2012, 2013, 2014 the same part number?)
The trim pry tool too. Thanks.
 
If someone wanted to do this, but instead of running the wire, they wanted to tap into the wires cluster already in the door. Does anyone know which wires colour wires to tap into?

@AlienPrime
@Amomicivic
@K24power07
 
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Love this man I could only make my vsa and Econ blue
Actually, both would be relatively easy IF you can find the small bulbs in blue. It should be as easy as exchanging bulbs. Thanks, I just might have to do this. :)

Although I haven't taken either of theses switches apart I have taken the OEM switch and the Hazard button switch apart. They use lights like these. Anyone know where to find these bulbs? I don't think a blue bulb exists. I think it has to come with a blue rubber condom. Do these bulbs come in different watts (brightnesses). Brighter the better because I think the blue condom thing will make the light dull.

P1010678 copy.JPG P1010680.JPG
 
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Actually, both would be relatively easy IF you can find the small bulbs in blue. It should be as easy as exchanging bulbs. Thanks, I just might have to do this. :)

Although I haven't taken either of theses switches apart I have taken the OEM switch and the Hazard button switch apart. They use lights like these. Anyone know where to find these bulbs? I don't think a blue bulb exists. I think it has to come with a blue rubber condom. Do these bulbs come in different watts (brightnesses). Brighter the better because I think the blue condom thing will make the light dull.

View attachment 35391 View attachment 35392

Here is what you are looking for Pauly

$(KGrHqN,!k8E1F5WYp9YBNY,RWJCY!~~_12.JPG



http://www.ebay.com/itm/MP00B-200pc...117641?pt=Model_RR_Trains&hash=item3cb561b6c9
 
Beast work. Nicely done. Ever try using a hot glue gun for tight low amp connections? Its easy to do, removeable, and generally holds up for at least 10 years in my experience. Plus its a great insulator. I love to hot glue stuff especially just for testing. Its like bam instant test weld. Hahahah
 
Beast work. Nicely done. Ever try using a hot glue gun for tight low amp connections? Its easy to do, removeable, and generally holds up for at least 10 years in my experience. Plus its a great insulator. I love to hot glue stuff especially just for testing. Its like bam instant test weld. Hahahah
damn i never thought of that. thats brilliant lol
 
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@Nix
Just wanted to say thanks for the idea of using hot glue to keep the lights where I wanted them. I took everything apart and redid it with hot glue. Works super well.

I will strongly recommend using the LED light strip unless you have lots of patience to do it this way.
image.jpg image.jpg
 
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Cool man. Glad it worked well for you. Don't use it in high heat environments but yea, the old ladies at the craft store have some tricks.
 
@CollegeHillsHonda

Hey Paul,
I was at my local dealership recently and on my way out I had a look inside an Accord, or maybe it was a Crosstour, and noticed the door controls looked identical to the Civics controls. I also noticed that the passenger side controls were lit. So, would this part fit in our Civic passenger doors? Maybe there is a way to have lit controls in both doors after all. :pray:

If this part looks like it will fit I would be willing to be the "Guinea pig" and test to find out if the window control and lock controls would still work properly.

What do you think?
 
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