Custom door sill lights!(Lots of pics)

[DJ Raydiate]

So, my father-in-law owns a 2011 Mustang and it has welcome lights on his door sills that looks like this:

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I got the idea that it would look good in my car so I started to make one. I found someone on ebay that was cutting brushed aluminum style vinyl letters that had about the same font as the 2g eclipse lettering. I got a hold of them and had them to do a reverse cut for me so the light would shine through. To illuminate it I bought an El panel kit for $28 from over seas. The El panel is about as thin as a folded sheet of notebook paper. I was going to use leds but we all know that we do not have much room to work with on the sills. I bought a poster frame that had thin plastic to cover the front of the poster to make the plate. I traced the vinyl sticker out on the plastic, cut it out and put red tail light tape on it so that way it would light up red. I then stuck the vinyl on the other side of the plastic so the red tape would not get messed up. This is what I have so far:

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I still need to take the sills out and sand them down a little where the light is going to be, drill a small hole for the wires, attach, and clean. Should be able to get it finished sometime in the next week or so.

 

[mitsukid124]

Awesome idea man! You definitely should post some pics after its complete, I could see this looking very clean.

Also are you going to have it set up so the lights shut back off once the door is closed?

 

[boblong6]

Nice idea, clean and not gaudy! I would love to have you make me one for my Passat! let me know when you make more will buy one for Passat and my dsm.

 

[DJ Raydiate]

I will post more pics when I am installing and the amount of shaving that I will be doing to the sills themselves. I will be wiring them into the kick panel light on the drivers side (one inverter runs both plates) so that they will work just like they do. I will be replacing the kick panel lights with red leds to match the sills.

I don't think that I will do any to sell but I will do a write up with a complete parts list when I do another set of plates (I don't have another set of vinyl right now) so that people can make their own.

 

[tomas123]

This is awesome! I didnt even know that this el paper existed. Im going to be having LOTS of fun now

 

[DJ Raydiate]

yeah its pretty cool stuff. Its not that bright during the day but very noticeable at night. This is the same kit that I got EL Panel Sheet Pad Back Light Display Backlight . when I ordered it in Feb., it was only like $30 for the whole kit.

 

[91-GS]

This will look really nice after it's finished.
Good job!

 

[4Lurker4]

Nice! I had the same plan, but ended up putting all the stuff I had prepared for it in a box till I fixed up my 1g. Looks good though. Mine has smaller writing in it because I didn't want it too big. Now I'll need to finish mine I was going to do a small inlay inside the sill itself (take out a very small portion of the plastic to have a pocket to fit this in) is that how you'll be putting it in? I take it you'll just wire it up to the door lights as well? Either way, nice stuff!

 

[tomas123]

yeah its pretty cool stuff. Its not that bright during the day but very noticeable at night. This is the same kit that I got EL Panel Sheet Pad Back Light Display Backlight . when I ordered it in Feb., it was only like $30 for the whole kit.

Thanks for the link, i was searching but couldn't find it haha

 

[DJ Raydiate]

Thanks everyone for the comments. The panels will be wired to the door lights so they will come on/off according to the door. I'm glad that I'm not the only one who thinks that this would look good. I did get some done today before my wife had to go to work. I got to go out to the car and measure out and took a dry erase marker and marked the corners of the panels onto the sill. Then I took and tapped off where I need to make the pocket for the panel to sit and be glued too. I am trying to get it to be flush with the sill so that way it has less of a chance being snagged on something like my sons foot . I will post some pics tomorrow/today after I make the pics smaller.

 

[truesk83r]

very interesting. I like the look of it.

 

[wmrcs]

Neat way to add some flavor.

 

[tomas123]

Im totally going to do this with carbon fiber hopefully. After i restore my pos

 

[DJ Raydiate]

So as promised, here are some more pics. Please don't mind the dirty sills or the dirty car. I'm getting to that .

This is just a size comparison of the plate.

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What it's going to look like on the sill.

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Taping it off.

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Built a lip with tape for a guide.

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Ready to make the pockets.

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I don't want to just cut the plastic rectangle out and put the plates there. I want the plates to site down into grove like pockets so that way it will be one piece. After I get the plate on the sills, I am going to use acrylic sealer spray to seal the top. Eventually I will vinyl wrap the sill to seal it but for now this will work.

 

[4Lurker4]

I'd seriously suggest rounding the corners on the metal plate. I'm doing it like that and it flow MUCH better than angles and straight lines. You're also setting it up exactly how I had planned mine so it'll be nice to see your progress.

 

[DJ Raydiate]

The reason I didn't want to round the corners is the fact that the ribs on the sill are straight so I figured that I'd just kept the plate straight. It's not a real metal plate. It is a brushed aluminum style vinyl sticker on top of thin plastic to mimic a plate.

 

[gophishy10]

This is a great idea. Keep up the work.

 

[4Lurker4]

Ah, I thought it was metal (mine are brushed aluminum, with a bit of an upper lip, guess we have one thing different ). I thought the same as you, but rounded will look better suited with the overall look of the car. Try it out, cut a quick cardboard piece, you'll see. Just a bit harder to do for the pocket, but it'll also hold it in better (corners tend to bend up after use giving it a point for a foot to get stuck to)

 

[DJ Raydiate]

I did do it with cardboard at first to get my design. I had one in the center rounded on both sides, one off to the front of the sill with just the front side rounded to contour with the front, and one on the back side that was rounded to contour with the rear. I decided that I wanted it in the center and that I wanted the lines of the so called plate to run with the ribs on the sill. Idk, to me it just kind of looked better imo to have it that way if it was going to be in the center. If I would have gone with it off center, then I would have rounded it depending where it was laying. I am using a router type bit on a dremel tool. If you have yours rounded, it should work to cut the pockets out. Oh and something else. This is just to get the plate on the sill. After I get it on and look good, since I eventual want to wrap the sill with 3m vinyl I can change how much and the design that is shown just my wrapping vinyl.

 

[4Lurker4]

My main issue with mine was that exact step, getting just enough pocket without damaging the sill. Don't have a router tip yet for it (although I do have a router with BIG tips) but I always thought the material there being flimsy and thin could make a mess of things if a router tool was used. I'll definitely stay tuned till you do that step, that's the one I was going to get a machinist buddy of mine to do because I didn't want to trash my sills.

 

[DJ Raydiate]

The plastic is actually thicker than I thought. I started cutting the pocket out last night with just a pink tip sanding stone and my dremel. I then found a router bit that I am going to put on a bench dremel to finish it up. Last night with just the regular dremel and sanding bit, I was able to get a good little lip going on, even though I sounded like Mick Dundee trying to make a call in the outback Lol.

 

[91-GS]

What font was used for the lettering?

 

[DJ Raydiate]

What font was used for the lettering?

to be honest, I don't know. At the time I was looking for something for the door sill I found this 2 Door Step Decal Sticker Badge Accent "Eclipse" | eBay and told them what I as wanting to do via email and had them do a reverse cut of that pattern. However I just looked on ebay and there much nicer things for the sills now. It's ok though, beings that I don't have a metal plate, I could always just peel that vinyl off and replace it with something that is closer. I just recently found this site Bitsumishi Font | dafont.com that has some pretty close fonts in the techno>sci-fi section. I was looking for fonts to use for future projects and found that.

 

[Amber]

Awesome idea! Something I will definetly be doing...someday...maybe soon...

 

[DJ Raydiate]

So, sorry for not updating this in like forever. I just got done with it tonight in fact. I had some other things that I ended up doing instead of working on this project. Well anyway, I ended up cutting a rectangle out of the sill to get the plate to sit all the way down. I tried my best to just gut out a pocket for it to sit into but there was just no way around it. I wrapped it in CF vinyl and cut out a rectangle for the light to be seen. When wrapping the sill, I tore,bubbled,and wrinkled the vinyl so I will end up redoing in. I am going to take 4lurker4's advice and round out the corners the next time I lay vinyl down and cut out the light. Now for some pics. (don't mind the poor vinyl wrap job)

Just finished wrapping the vinyl.

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Test and look fit.

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A different angle.

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And the sill on. Sorry for the poor quality.

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I still have to run the wires and splice into the foot well light for power. For test purposes, I just used a 9v battery to power the inverter. I have to order some more vinyl to redo the drivers side but it is my first time messing with it. Now that I know how to work the vinyl, the passenger side should look a lot better