Elite LED lighting

[Kirghiz]

Here is the pic Benny texted me of one of mine. I think that's the Elite.1, maybe. Still obviously haven't seen it in person. Not sure if the plexi is on or off in the pic, or if it's in the truck at this point. He just said "Here ya go". LOL

AMP.jpg (15.75 KiB) Viewed 14412 times

[Drock]

Couldn't agree more.


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[ttocs]

like I said do a 7 color strip and get the best of both worlds.

[Kirghiz]

like I said do a 7 color strip and get the best of both worlds.

The way my amp racks are being done, the amps are going to be mounted on "pegs" that raises them up off the bottom about 3/4" to 1". This is to allow the heatsinks, which are on the bottom of the amps, to breathe a little better. Blue LED's will be mounted under the amps. The sides are going to be built up flush with the top of the amps, with the rear portion disappearing back under the seat. There should be roughly a 1/4" -3/8" gap around the edges of the amp rack and the amp to allow the blue LED light to outline the amp's silhouette. What should happen is there will be a blue outline around the outside edge of the amps and then the white LED's dulled by the smoked plexi on the inside of the amps. The two together should create a nice contrast, in theory. One amp each will be under the passenger and driver's side back seats, and of course the pair of Elite 12's with their own rather bright blue LED's will be in the middle between the seats.

If everything looks like I pictured it in my head, it should have a nice contrast and look fairly tasteful. Hopefully the implementation will look like I pictured.

[ttocs]

I thought the long ends, where the transistors are mounted, was the heat sink?

[Drock]

Most of the sink is the bottom of the amp.


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[Kirghiz]

I thought the long ends, where the transistors are mounted, was the heat sink?

They are, but a good portion of the sinks extend along the bottom too. If you look at that Audio Innovations install thread with the 6 Elite amps, check out how they did their amp racks. The fans are mounted under the amps, pulling air away from the amps from underneath. It was that thread they gave me the idea to raise mine up a bit. I don't really have a serious heat issue though. I can wail on them for 2 1/2 hours straight before the 4 channel gets seriously hot, so I didn't figure I would need the fans, but the extra air space should help, and gave me a place to put some lights.

[ttocs]

forgot that was down there. Had to look at mine to remember...

[kg1961]

man im not sure about the led in the amps-look cheap imo
these are high end units not a pg octane le.
I would rather a cool silk screen on the plexi vs leds
than also colors start to be a problem with the cars colors etc. Not sure just not for me I guess

[bdub]

man im not sure about the led in the amps-look cheap imo
these are high end units not a pg octane le.
I would rather a cool silk screen on the plexi vs leds
than also colors start to be a problem with the cars colors etc. Not sure just not for me I guess

Yeah I understand why it's not for everyone. That's why I think they ran with the smoked plexi in the first place. All I can say is it looks way better in real life. My bad pics make it look much more cheesy lol.

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[Drock]

Definitely look bad ass in person. Each to his own. But the LEDs make a huge difference IMO. I absolutely love seeing the those components on the boards. And will be trying the white led to show the Easter egg.


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[Kirghiz]

When you try and take a picture of this with a camera, the flash messes it up, and it looks cheesy. So......I turned my flash off and went with a longer exposure. Might be a bit blurred, but you get a better idea of what white lights under the smoked plexi gives you. If anything, it shows you WHY these amps are $1,000+. It shows off every cap, transistor, resistor, and everything. It damn sure isn't cheesy. The triangle LED's on the Elite subs on the other hand one could make an argument about being cheesy. Unfortunately, the way they are mounted in my truck the part of the board that has the easter egg is back under the seat, but I'm not complaining about it. It is what it is. The light that comes through the smoke plexi when you use white LED's is like a greenish-blue, and I think it matches the blue LED's that are under the amps very well.

[Drock]

Man I could look at those all day long.


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[Kirghiz]

Man I could look at those all day long.

They look alright during the day, but night time is much cooler.

[Kirghiz]

To the point about this being an individual taste thing, the lights to my amps are actually externally powered, on the same circuit as the subs' lights, which is tied into my alarm. I use a button on the alarm's key fob to turn them on and off. They aren't always on when the amp is on. I wouldn't want them to be on all the time, just like I wouldn't want the subs' LED's to be on all the time. To that end, there is absolutely no reason why Phoenix Gold couldn't put white LED's inside the amps considering they already put them on the subs, and the lights for the subs already have to be externally powered. If they did put the lights in the amps, and you as the end user knew that you didn't want to use them, than you could just not hook them up. It's really not that big of a deal.

Honestly, I was kind of on the fence about having them hook up the lights on the subs, because I was and still am kind of meh on those. Basically my installer said they could hook them up, put them on the key fob, and if I didn't want to run them I didn't have to turn them on, but they'd be there if I ever decided to turn them on. I can count on my fingers the number of times I've turned the subs on since they were installed, all of which were for pictures or to show to people save for one occasion. On that occasion I wanted to drive around jamming just to see what that was like, and it was the same, just very blue. They are incredibly bright. I also damn near got pulled over during the fifteen minutes or so I was doing that because blue and red lights are illegal in my state (emergency vehicle colors). So yeah, the lights on the subs are really kind of stupid imo. Lights on subs are just lights for the sake of mounting lights. Lights inside of amps however are a different story. They at least serve a purpose, which is to show off the electronics on some of the finest car amplifiers ever constructed. Put them on a switch like mine, and you can run them with or without the lights on, so everyone's happy.

[bdub]

100% agreed and very well said. Your method of wiring is perfect for your install too, considering it's all in the truck's cabin. Mine will be wired to my trunk lights.

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[Kirghiz]

Mine will be wired to my trunk lights.

Yeah, that would be cool too. The lights won't be on when no one is looking at them.

No one here is saying they want them to be on every time the amp powers on. Drock is doing a truck cabin install too, so I don't figure he wants his on all the time either. If PG were to make the amps with the lights in them, it would be as simple as mounting the lights and running the wires to a plug on the end cap, similar to the speaker wire plugs, basically the same as the lights on the subs, and be done with it. If they wanted to get cute they could use multi color LED's, and use a pot on the end cap with click adjustments much like the crossovers to control the colors (because different installs call for different colors). From there the end user can hook them up to whatever switch system they want to use, or not hook them up at all.

Using lighting can certainly be cheesy, but it's only cheesy if you make it that way.

[Drock]

I will be putting a resister in line to tone the sub LEDs down.
But I want to figure out how to wire my light to use the key fob to turn on and off. That is such a great idea. I always forget the remotes have the extra options.


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[Kirghiz]

I will be putting a resister in line to tone the sub LEDs down.
But I want to figure out how to wire my light to use the key fob to turn on and off. That is such a great idea. I always forget the remotes have the extra options.
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Honestly I have no idea. I've never installed an alarm myself, and never worked on anything newer than like 1991 lol. I think the alarm is hooked to some open slots in the fuse box, because they ran the LED wires went into it, and then programmed the remotes.

While it sounds cool, the buttons don't work when the vehicle is running, so it isn't the most practical. A toggle switch would probably work better. But, when you are showing someone the system, walking up to the truck, unlocking it with the fob, opening the doors and raising the seats usually elicits a "holy sh*t!". Then hitting the lights and remote starting it, all before getting in, generally seals the deal, even before you find a track and turn it up.

[ttocs]

I will be putting a resister in line to tone the sub LEDs down.
But I want to figure out how to wire my light to use the key fob to turn on and off. That is such a great idea. I always forget the remotes have the extra options.


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stick a potentiometer on the wire feeding it power somewhere and you can then adjust it as you need for either day/night of what ever you want.

[Drock]

I was going to see if an old lpl will work.


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[Kirghiz]

Phoenix Gold is accepting install pictures for their facebook page today, and it looks like someone beat us all to LED's in the Elite amps. This is an Elite.5. I do however think from looking at the pics that they swapped out the smoked plexi for clear. It looks pretty good though.

Pulled from PG's facebook page.

[bdub]

Definitely swapped the plexi. It looks good. Can't wait to see your plexi swap Drock!

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[Kirghiz]

With the orange LED's and clear plexi, the only thing missing from the above amp is the "Team Gold" frosting on the plexi.

[Drock]

I like the orange.
Is there a team Phoenix Gold file out there that I can get. I will try to get a few done if I can get the file.


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