A quick LED Mod to my new Exile Cabin Speakers...

[ian ashton]

I ordered 3 pairs of SX65's from Brian (Great CS by the way! He even threw in some Meguairs detailer and a chammois!!!), and I wanted to jazz em up a little bit before I installed them. At some point I'll do LED speaker rings on all 6 and my towers, but I've got so many other projects planned that one had to wait. Anyway, I was playing around on eBay and bought a bunch of different style LED strips, basically to just see what they looked like, when I came across these. (http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=160557708337&viewitem=&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWNX%3AIT) So, for $16 shipped I ordered 3 sets (6 strips.)

http://onesevenonetwo.com/Pics/IMG_3600.jpg

These are a little long, so I cut them down. You just have to make sure you cut in increments of 3 LEDs to keep the circuit complete.
http://onesevenonetwo.com/Pics/IMG_3602.jpg

Before: (So Sexy!)
http://onesevenonetwo.com/Pics/IMG_3601.jpg

So all I did was wrap the LED's around the cutout area lip thing for the tweeters. The LEDs have 3m adhesive on the back, and stick pretty darn good:
http://onesevenonetwo.com/Pics/IMG_3603.jpg

[ian ashton]

LEDs wrapped all the way around:
http://onesevenonetwo.com/Pics/IMG_3605.jpg

Next I just ran the power/ground wires along the inside of the grille, and used super glue to hold them in place. The Exile grilles are awesome for this, as they've got little channels that hide the wires completely, you can not see them from the front side:
http://onesevenonetwo.com/Pics/IMG_3606.jpg

After: (Notice, you can't see the wires, OR the LED strips, they are completely concealed behind the grille, I think that adds a layer of cool-ness;
http://onesevenonetwo.com/Pics/IMG_3607.jpg

This was taken with my iPhone when I was "testing" them before I actually trimmed and secured them into place, but you get the idea. I didn't get any good pics with my real camera. This was powering with a 9V battery, not sure if that has any impact on the brightness or not, but they are defiantely pretty bright. Should look pretty sweet!
http://onesevenonetwo.com/Pics/photo%202.jpg


So for $16 its not a bad little upgrade. I got all the grilles finished in about 30 minutes, now I just have to get them in the boat and re-wire all of my LEDs to the new switches.

[brain_rinse]

Cool idea! The LED rings look good at night but I don't care for the frosted spacer look during the day. I like the stealth mode of this mod... nice work.

[bergermaister]

I am SO copying you when I swap out my cabin speakers in the next month or so!

Thanks for the idea. I've been wondering the best way to go about doing this.

[viking]

Nice Mod Ian. Making sure they are hidden is the bomb! I'll be interested to see how the sticky tape holds up over the next season or 2.

[ian ashton]

I also super glued them at the seams, just in case :)

[dusty2221]

Looks great!

Seems similar to something I've seen.... :)

[ian ashton]

Looks great!

Seems similar to something I've seen.... :)

You were my inspiration! Didn't you use single LEDs? Too much work for me!

[Brianinpdx]

Ian - This is pretty cool. Good job. Dont thank me for those extra goodies... Thats my warehouse guy. We are sponsored by Meguiars so we pass along the good love so to speak.

Glad you got the speakers. I like the light upgrade. Looks good and fairly easy for guys to do.

Is the rest of your boat dialed in with blue LED's?

-Brian
Exile Audio

[skiyaker]

very cool- that's enough to make me consider an LED upgrade
Ashton- did you do other upgrades or just replace the cabins? Let me know what you think of the difference in sound between you polks and the exile- I'm trying to decide whether there would be any sense in replacing the stock cabin speakers without doing a whole lot else (new amp, battery, tower speakers, etc) which I don't have the coin for right now.

[Brianinpdx]

PS: I was kind of wondered how long it would take guys to figure out our little secret in the grill design -- we intentionally built a edge into it to mount Led's. Anyone figure out what the other flange is seen in back side of the grill?

Any guesses? hehe.

-Brian

[ian ashton]

Ian - This is pretty cool. Good job. Dont thank me for those extra goodies... Thats my warehouse guy. We are sponsored by Meguiars so we pass along the good love so to speak.

Glad you got the speakers. I like the light upgrade. Looks good and fairly easy for guys to do.

Is the rest of your boat dialed in with blue LED's?

-Brian
Exile Audio

Yea, blue in the cup holders, above the driver side sub, in the gunnells shinging under the cabin speakers, under the bow filler cushion, and just put the transom set up in today :)

[ian ashton]

very cool- that's enough to make me consider an LED upgrade
Ashton- did you do other upgrades or just replace the cabins? Let me know what you think of the difference in sound between you polks and the exile- I'm trying to decide whether there would be any sense in replacing the stock cabin speakers without doing a whole lot else (new amp, battery, tower speakers, etc) which I don't have the coin for right now.

For now it will be just the Cabin speakers. Ive already got 2 Kicker L7s, and a 700.5. I also have a ZX1000.1 laying around - I might swap that in for the subs, sell the 700.5 and get a 650.4 to power the cabins.

[ian ashton]

PS: I was kind of wondered how long it would take guys to figure out our little secret in the grill design -- we intentionally built a edge into it to mount Led's. Anyone figure out what the other flange is seen in back side of the grill?

Any guesses? hehe.

-Brian

I figured that was to allow you guys the ability to do a component option in the future...

[ptcbtchr]

Ian,
I want to add led's to my drink holders (6) and maybe a couple under the back seat and under gunnel. Where did you buy the led's and how did you wire them. I have 2 rocker switches not hooked to anything so I would guess I would use one of them for on off. I would appreciate help with this. I haven't done any 12 volt wiring for a long time and am anxious to do this. It seems fairly straight forward but was wondering how you wired and which led's you bought.

thanks

Mark

[viking]

ptcbtchr
If I'm not mistaken he is using the same superflux LED's that I purchased through oznium.com http://www.oznium.com/prewired-superflux

For the strips (other than those in the speakers) I got the http://www.oznium.com/led-flex-strips from oznium as well.

The rear underwater LED was purchased on a group buy last year but that thread has been deleted somehow :(

I'm in the middle of my install and haven't done 12v wiring in a while either so re-learning as i go :)

[ian ashton]

ptcbtchr
If I'm not mistaken he is using the same superflux LED's that I purchased through oznium.com http://www.oznium.com/prewired-superflux

For the strips (other than those in the speakers) I got the http://www.oznium.com/led-flex-strips from oznium as well.

The rear underwater LED was purchased on a group buy last year but that thread has been deleted somehow :(

I'm in the middle of my install and haven't done 12v wiring in a while either so re-learning as i go :)

For the latching switches, if you want them to glow when on, jump terminal 3-5, ground 1, power 2, and switched power is 3. That's from memory, I'll verify later,lol

[bergermaister]

Ian, I'm curious how those light strips from BRLED on eBay look in the dark compared to your other LEDs as far as brightness and being true blue. I was thinking about tucking some up tight underlining a few cushions up front and maybe across the back seat but figured I may want to do some testing and comparing before buying a bunch of strips.

I'm doing blue as well so I'd like hear your thoughts. Thanks.

[ian ashton]

Finally remembered to snap some pics of the lights in the dark (actually it was just under the cover, but you get the idea ;)

https://forum.moomba.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=7507&stc=1&d=1302993716

[newty]

Nice! looks killer. Noce mod for sure!

[viking]

Ian,
Nice work. Looks great! Do you not have the cockpit speaker holes in the factory location? Or do you have those too?

[ian ashton]

I didn't really like the factory location through the vinyl, so when we ordered the boat I did it without a stereo, then added my own mounts in the gunnells.

This was with the Polk's, I don't have a daylight picture with the Exiles yet:
https://forum.moomba.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=7509&stc=1&d=1303063961