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Blog Post

Custom roof lighting

03 Sep 2017
0 Comment
Vedran Relja
Ford Capri Build Log

There’s a story behind almost every aspect of the build and the interior lighting is no exception.
I wanted to create a luxury feel inside the cabin. Almost like in a salon, or a theater, but it also had to have a gritty look (gritty, simple and straightforward approach). That was hard to achieve because those two things usually don’t go together. So again I went for the black on black solution, trying to minimize everything as much as I could. From my experience, I knew that the design would be way over-engineered, but in the end it would look very simple.

Custom roof lighting

The shape and the light diffuser of the VW reading lamp was perfect, these kind of lamps can be found on bunch of scrap yards.

Custom roof lighting

The first step was to remove all the excess material, more or less by blunt force :)

Custom roof lighting

The rest was removed by sanding.

Custom roof lighting

The center was marked and the new mounting holes were drilled and countersink.

Custom roof lighting

The next stage was surface sanding, putting plastic primer and painting, because it needed it to be black of course. Now there are also black VW lamps, but since they belong to rare editions, their price was twenty times more than the brand new gray ones.

Custom roof lighting

Lamp covers all done.

Custom roof lighting

After measuring the wire lengths, the soldering begun. I used double layer of the heat shrink insulation.

Custom roof lighting

I decided to use warm colored LED strips for the lights.

Custom roof lighting

If you watch carefully, you can see that I removed the right end contacts in order to squeeze another 6 LEDs into a diffuser.

Custom roof lighting

I just wanted to double check what kind of current will be present. However, for the LEDs I will use the PWM controller, so I can regulate the brightness and reduce the heat they are producing at full power, so the consumption will be even less.

Custom roof lighting

Didn’t want to use the regular screws that are kinda flimsy, so I inserted rivet nuts.

Custom roof lighting

The steel version seems to be really strong considering the purpose.

Custom roof lighting

Those are sandwich plates, if you are wondering what is their purpose, don’t worry, it will be explained soon.

Custom roof lighting

First, they were hand sanded prior to powder-coating.

Custom roof lighting

Almost complete.

Custom roof lighting

After everything was powder-coated, I used the LED’s self adhesive tape to attach the modules to the plates.

Custom roof lighting

The purpose of the plates was to have one inside the roofing material (it will also be the mounting point for the lamps), and also one on the visible side of the headliner, so they can sandwich the material together.

Shema

The purpose of the plates explained in this utterly confusing sketch.

Custom roof lighting

After “fishing” for the wires, I began with soldering.

Custom roof lighting

The attaching the LED module. Hopefully it won’t die to quickly, since the replacement could be a quite a procedure.

Custom roof lighting

After soldering, I put over a heat sink insulation, and electrical tape for redundancy. Also, this car cabin cable fabric insulator was put over everything. A bit of an overkill, but the whole project is like that.

Custom roof lighting

A mounted lamp.

Custom roof lighting

I used modern rivet nuts and bolts, now the handles are much sturdier than the old ones that were attached with the regular screws.

Custom roof lighting

The lamp in action.

Custom roof lighting

You can see how intensity of the light can be regulated.

Custom roof lighting

This warm LED color combined with this kind of interior really creates a luxury feeling. When set to the maximum brightness, they provide enough light, but since they are mounted behind the handles, they’re not too invasive for the eyes. Really satisfied how the whole roof lighting project turned out.

If you like what you see, you can follow us on Facebook and Instagram :)

 

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