footwell illumination

[Ka-IG]

I'm working on the exact same thing! Maybe it's just because it's winter in the northern hemisphere, but I am aggravated beyond rationality that there's not a light around the keyhole and I have to carefully look each time I start the car at night. I was thinking of making a flashing that fits above the keyhole and shines an LED down where it's needed.

I found this thread and SPECULATE that the circuitry in the the photo is a transistor, capacitor, resistor, and diode that all work together to make the LED dim slowly when the car doors close or the lights are turned off. ( A nice feature, but hardly necessary for a utility vehicle. ) What I have not yet investigated is:

1. do all Grenadiers have this footwell light that could be tapped into, or is it just the Fieldmaster level of trim?
2. is it straight 12v that runs to this LED (switched by the computer/ADAS) or is it some kind of fly by wire signal that activates the LED? (easy to test with a multimeter, I just have not yet done it)
3 would running an 12v LED in parallel to this circuit to the Keyhole area have any adverse effects?

After checking with the technician at the local service center, the LED pcb voltage is 5V and is not available for sale from the factory.
I doubt I’ll be able to find a similar one anytime soon. Been looking everywhere. I’ll try to wire a standard 5V pcb and see how it behaves.

 

[wompser]

Yes, this is exactly what I mean. You could wire the LED to the INT switched wire in the footwell, but then you'd have to flip it on and off. The footwell LED already is wired to turn on and off at the right time, particularly when the doors are opened. It makes sense to connect to the wires that go to the footwell light, but just need to figure out how to tap into it without causing other problems.

 

[ADVAW8S]

Yes, this is exactly what I mean. You could wire the LED to the INT switched wire in the footwell, but then you'd have to flip it on and off. The footwell LED already is wired to turn on and off at the right time, particularly when the doors are opened. It makes sense to connect to the wires that go to the footwell light, but just need to figure out how to tap into it without causing other problems.

Find the fuse and piggy back off of that

 

[LabRat]

Has anyone tried tapping into the headlights circuit for this? So they would turn on when the headlights are turned on. I'm not as concerned about the brief time getting into the vehicle but would rather have some dim illumination in the footwells while driving at night.

 

[wompser]

Find the fuse and piggy back off of that

I've spent some time poking around for this fuse, but it's not an easy one to find! The idea of using a piggyback off of the proper fuse is a good and simple solution. But I've tried what I thought were the obvious fuses from the manual, and have not found the right one yet. I'm wondering if the footwell lights are controlled by the head unit, but not fused separately. that might explain why they seem to be driven by lower than 12v. still doing some digging.