EDM/JDM blue to red LED swap. Turn your car into an S402 for <$10

[ckwaters]

Anyone who has done an EDM center console swap knows that it's both expensive and challenging to find the parts needed for the swap. Especially when you end up buying the same parts more than once because you didn't know about all the variations in these parts.

 

In my experience, my first EDM center console came from Lithuania. The console I purchased must've come from a base level vehicle because it didn't have SI-Drive and the cupholders did not have LEDs. Fortunately, the JDM cupholder fits in the EDM console and they are much easier to find then EDM parts. So I purchased JDM cupholders which had all the parts I needed; the LEDs and the clear rings that go around the cupholders that are illuminated by the LEDs. The cupholders from Lithuania had black plastic rings and no LEDs.

 

After getting my JDM cupholders I hooked everything up and installed it in my car thinking the project was finally finished. I turned on my car only to find out the standard JDM cupholders had BLUE LEDs! I loathe blue LEDs in any application. Out cars have red LEDs everywhere and they look great, following that color to the cupholders would've made too much sense. So I was scratching my head thinking maybe the previous owner swapped them for blue because I know I've seen pictures of cupholders with red LEDs.

After a lot of research I found out that the red LED cupholders only came on the S402. At the time of this posting I did see at least 1 option for S402 cupholders on Yahoo Auctions for a little over $100. That's not a bad price considering that financial logic is thrown out the window the moment you decide to install an EDM center console. But since I already had 2 sets of cupholders and the only thing I wanted to change was the color of the LEDs I decided to go about only changing the LED to save some money and more importantly a lot of time waiting for more parts to arrive from Japan.

The blue LEDs look OK in the picture above but believe me, that's just the magic of the iPhone. They clashed hard and they needed to go in a hurry. And that's what this write-up is for.

 

The LEDs look like this. There are 2 of them and they connectors plug into the bottom.

 

Here it is again with the grey plastic casing removed. Special thanks to members such as aero901, Tricky Rick and SwitchPNW on SubaruOutback.org for educating me on LEDs and circuits. The resistor pictured is 1.3k Ohm. Blue LEDs require more power than red so the red will be brighter with the same amount of power, but don't worry about that in this case because the brightness of the red ended up being perfect without messing with the resistor.

 

As for the size, the common sizes I could find on Amazon and eBay were 5mm and 3mm while the OEM LED was exactly 4mm.

 

I purchased a pack of 200 5mm LEDs in a variety of colors for about $9 and some change. They measured in at 4.875mm and are quite a bit taller than the OEM LED.

 

Swapping the LEDs wasn't too challenging. I used a soldering iron, a solder sucker, soldering wick, a tiny flat screwdriver, needle nose pliers and solder.

First secure the circuit board so you have 2 hands to work with. Heat up the solder and remove it with the solder sucker and/or solder wick. Once it's cleaned up enough, gently straighten the pins and the LED should come right out. Save the black plastic piece that adds stability to the LED pins, we will reuse it with the new LED.

 

With LEDs it's important to get the orientation correct. The positive is the side closer to the resistor and both LEDs have an axe-shaped conductor on that side. It's easily visible in this picture and a whole lot easier in person. Just remember the axe is positive. And since the new LED is much larger I choked it all the way down so it is sitting on top of the black plastic piece and their heights were close enough that the LED functions the same. Push the new LED pins through and trim the leads so there is enough material to bend over and hold the LED in place. Gently crimp the leads down with needle nose pliers so it looks like this picture above when you removed the solder. Now add a little bit of solder to the leads.

 

Test them out to make sure you did a good job with your soldering. I like to use my battery jumper for stuff like this because it's portable and has a big switch on it that I can quickly turn off if something goes wrong.

 

I think this is a picture of both new LEDs installed. I forgot to do a side by side. But make sure you put the new LEDs on straight because the plastic housing barely fits the larger LEDs. If you run into problems you could ream them out a little with a drill but in my case that wasn't necessary. At this point I tested them again just to make sure my soldering could withstand the force of putting the circuit boards back in the housing.

 

And here is the finished product inside the car! The color and brightness look exactly as they should. I used these LEDs for the project but any brand will probably work just as well. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07Q3LCMFK/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Edited April 1, 2022 by ckwaters
special thanks to Outback members

[JoeInOregon]

What a boss, thanks for this. Any advise on sourcing bathe edm console , I just wondered down that rabbit hole.

 

Is there a write up with part numbers somewhere ?

 

I could not find one

 

Sent from my Pixel 3a using Tapatalk

[ckwaters]

The parts are a pain to find. eBay doesn’t make it easy to search for parts only in other countries. Maybe a VPN would help. I found some parts on eBay and then asked the seller if they could get me the other parts I needed. Finally got most of what I needed from Lithuania. I have all the part numbers somewhere. They’re on opposed forces. But it’s not that helpful because people don’t list things on eBay with those part numbers.

[ckwaters]

What a boss, thanks for this. Any advise on sourcing bathe edm console , I just wondered down that rabbit hole.

 

Is there a write up with part numbers somewhere ?

 

I could not find one

 

Sent from my Pixel 3a using Tapatalk

 

Here's a tip more useful than part numbers since a lot of them are discontinued. The hardest part of all of this in my experience was finding a handbrake boot. After months of looking I found one yesterday in the form of an entire handbrake lever. "Handbremshebel" is German for handbrake lever. Let this be an indication of how persistent and creative you have to be to find these parts.