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Interior lighting 1995+

SnowDrift

SnowDrift

Ultra Conservative. ULTRA!
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Has anyone changed out their interior bulbs for LEDs? 1994 and older are like daylight on the inside with interior lights on, but the 1995 body style and the new dash really went downhill. I came across this link and I think I'm going to do this.

http://www.gmtruckcentral.com/articles/interiorLED.html

The '05 Suburban we just got is really no better, so I plan to change those out, too. It's like daylight in our '94 and in the '05, I have to wonder if I even turned the lights on at all.
 
I did it. The only interior lights not LED are in the dash and radio. Actually I had a pretty good excuse to do it when I bought the Burb as ~1/2 the filament bulbs were dead anyway.

Critical thing to watch for is the color. For a nice pure white get 5K (aka 5000 K) and make sure that the seller states this value. If the goal is to have the same color as the filament, go with ~3K (2,700 - 3,200K). Some sellers will give the texture as 'warm', 'cool', 'day', etc which really does not tell you *exactly* where in the spectrum the light is, so avoid these sellers. Recommend *not* getting 6K as that gives a white with blue-ish alien tint that women tend to hate.

My go-to source is vleds<dot> as their quality is pretty good. On the rare occasion that I had a DOA, the exchange was extremely easy.

For the overhead 'reading' and floor marker lights, I went with the directional bulb.

For the doors and glove box, I went with the round multi pattern (end plus radial) bulbs.

Except for the festoon bulbs, I had to ream ~1mm of plastic out of the housings so that the bulb would fit, but it did not effect the installation and snugness of the housing.
 
I had my 97 completely converted to LED including dash, door lock/window buttons, 4wd actuator lights on the floor, everything. I loved it. I had red led in everything. The only downside to having leds in the dash being they don't dim. But for me with the red they were never an issue day or night. I have a few videos of the truck showing the red LED dash lights at night, if your interested my youtube channel link is in my sig
 
All good information. Thanks, guys!

I'm not planning to do anything with the dash - just need more light on the interior is all.
 
I put a couple of these in my factory dome light housing: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FKPJJNY/?tag=jhuntlink-20

Two are overkill, but can't argue that they light things up. Practically speaking, to the point, I think it unwise to light them going down the road at night as it wrecks the driver's night vision. On the plus side, you don't need a flashlight to find something dropped on the floor anymore :)
For reference, the interior light pictures were taken same time of night as the one showing the door reflector light.

I like the flat 48 smd panels for locations where there's a flat surface behind lens. They come with double sided tape & several adapters to use the OEM bulb's power source.

001.jpg

Bought these to replace many of the 194 size bulbs. Some locations require some trimming as the upper portion is considerably bigger than 194 incandescent, but good price buying 20 & they give a nice white light for floorboard lights, license plate lights, door reflectors, etc.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00N4GJHJ2/?tag=jhuntlink-20
011.jpg 012.jpg

On the dash led's not being dimmable, I wonder if the Autometer LED dimmer wouldn't dim them as well? Guessing it does that with some type of pulse width modulation? I have LED's to go in the dash, but don't want to do that until I have a dimming solution.
 
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Forgot my dome light is in an overhead console out of a newer Blazer, so may not be room in GMT400 dome lights for the 48 smd panel? But great light output where you have room to place them.

I also used the 20 smd 194 style bulbs in the console's 4 map lights. Took a little trimming of reflector. These 20 smd 194 style LEDs aren't maybe quite as well adapted for directional light as some of the more specific purpose shapes, but they're a lot of light for the cost & the applications I've used them in pretty much shield the light so only shows in intended directions.
 
Nice and bright!

It's a very rare occasion that I have the dome light on while driving, so that doesn't bother me. Daylight on the inside is what I'm after and it seems you've just about accomplished that.

side note, I'd like for you to photoshop your shifter out of your photos from now on, when you post. It just reminds me that I don't have one of those and I start thinking about shopping for another donor truck again. ;)
 
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