#clericar

I've always had a fixation on car lighting, n ever since I've had a car myself, I always thought of silly ways to add a little cosmetic or utility lighting here and there. I particularly wanted to try LED "neon" underglow, for a touch of customizable, indirect color, that can be completely invisible when turned off.

with my new car (someone cut me off at a red light in january :c) I've started getting more into doing my own maintenance and tweaking, n with a visit to my mom's place, with room to work and access to power tools, I figured it was the time :3 I got one of those inexpensive bluetooth kits on AliExpress, comprised of 2 chains of a 90cm strip, 180cm, and another 90cm, to be installed like this:

the dimensions seemed most appropriate for Clericar II

Friday

I started with the end of the chain, at the back. I don't trust the strip's pre-applied double-sided tape to hold them in place for any amount of time, even the official product page recommended to use zip ties.

There wasn't any obvious good spot to attach the strips in back, the two options were either the bottom of the rear bumper, or the chassis behind it, full of bumps, hot exhaust pipes, tow hitch, and other obstacles. The bumper seemed best, I drilled holes in the hollow plastic for zip ties, cleaned the surface, and installed the strips there

I had a bit of an oopsie with that first strip, bent it a bit too hard and broke some solder joints :< I thought it was best to leave it on and work on the rest, and worry about replacing it later, since i didnt bring my soldering iron. but! my mom has a Not Soldering Iron™ for engraving wood, so i went for a quick trip to the hardware store for solder n I managed to fix it :3 at the cost of weatherproofing

I routed the cables over and around the rear wheels to reach the sides of the car, and took a mental note to be careful about tight bends later.

I wasn't a big fan of the result so far, because just standing behind the car, the strips themselves were visible, and I would have preferred them to be entirely hidden. but in exchange, the light was covering a large area under and behind the car!

Saturday

Safely securing strips to the side of the car seemed like an impossible job: the sheet metal from the side panels folds towards the centre and is directly soldered to structural metal, leaving seemingly no room for zip ties:

My only bet were three holes with rubber plugs along the edge, but those would be too close to the edge, making the light strips visible (like in back), and interfering with jack points. I bashed my head at this problem, seeing that no one online seemed to have that issue (their car had more traditional side panel skirts, even among other low sporty cars).

Eventually, I found a blog post of someone building their own LED strips (before cheap ones on AliExpress were a thing) and attaching them with hot glue. Short of any other options, I figured that would work, and went out and bought a cheap glue gun.

I would still much prefer solid physical connection over glue,, but it was also a lot stronger than expected, so maybe this will do. The downside of having the strips farther from the edges is that the light on the ground doesn't spread nearly as much, but it was either that, or the strips getting squished next time I or a mechanic need to lift the car up.

I also used hot glue to fix the weatherproofing on that rear strip i re-soldered, and extra electrical tape just in case!

Sunday

The front bumper is almost ideal: a plastic surface, with a short lip to hide everything. drilling holes for zip ties wasn't easy, with the weird geometry down there, I should have probably removed the bumper entirely for easy access, but im strubborn so I managed

wiring was a bit annoying: I want the LEDs to be connected to accessory power, to turn on when I unlock the car, stay on when the car is on, and for a few minutes after turning off the engine, but no fuse inside the engine bay reflects this state. I can't easily pass a wire from the cabin to the engine bay either, at least not without removing a windshield wiper arm, which takes some tools I don't have (and am a bit scared to use ><)

most guides and even the product page recommend wiring it directly to the battery, and turning it on and off via bluetooth, which sounds like a terrible idea! imagine not noticing it's on in daylight and draining the battery, and also, even off, the control box is still emitting a BLE signal, that doesnt sound great! maybe I'll use one of those automatic DRL controllers, that detects when the engine is on with the voltage increase caused by the generator, and stays on for a minute after the engine is turned off, I got one at home

I ended up just hotwiring it to a headlight fuse, as safely as i could, n hopefully one day I can pass wires from the cabin to do what I want! im still not too happy with the wiring, there's some dodgy things i did cause i couldn't easily make holes in the wheel guards, and some lengths of cable that are a bit too long and risk sagging down under the car. the latter is easy to fix but the former idk!

the front light spread is rly nice, similar to the back but the light strips are well hidden! photos don't do it justice but I like the overall result a lot :D

I already know some people have comments about RGB lights on a car, but I do not care :3 I knew going into this that even in the car community, this is a controversial mod, I knew I was doing it for myself, and I like it! you can keep your negative comments for yourself ^ㅅ^

am just a chronically online widdle cat ^ㅅ^

website carrd bio thing here!