I've been "updating" some things in my cars interior recently and I decided to buy a Gentex mirror from a Tahoe so I could have the temp, compass and auto-dimming. Doing this makes it so I don't have map lights anymore, which is a bummer.

Work was slow today so I was cleaning out drawers and cupboards of random accumulated junk. I found a dome light from a newer (2014-2015?) Suburban that we did an overhead dropdown DVD/Monitor a while back, and it got my brain churning.

I carefully opened up the Gentex mirror using gentle pressure and a razorblade:



Then I laid the mirror open to see how much room I had to work with (looks like plenty!)



I grabbed the LED dome light and opened it up too




This looked really workable, so I pulled the circuit board and removed the little rubber bumpers on it:




After some experimenting with placement, this looked like the best option here at the bottom of the housing. I used a razor knife to do a little clearancing:




Lookie there! Slides right in!



Now I had to figure out how to turn the lights on. There's only 4 contacts, so after some trial and error, I got it.
It turns out that you Ground pin B and apply 12V to pins A and C. I soldered some wires those pins:



Now time to place the LEDs. I just kinda arbitrarily picked a spot and mirrored it on the other side. I used an 11/32 drill bit and carefully drilled the holes:




Then I put the circuit board back in and secured the LEDs with a little hot glue:







Then I put some shrink tube on my wires and routed them out the back of the mirror and reassembled everything:



Here's how it looks lit up on my bench. Holy hell these LEDs are BRIGHT!




I'll try and get it installed in the car this week. When I do I'll post pics of the install and the finished result.

 

Looking forward to final results. I've been kicking around eventually changing the mirror in my car whenever I do my planned interior redo (way down the road) and the dome lights have been something I've been mulling over for a while now.

 

that is cool, Nice job

 

Went ahead and put the mirror in the car this evening. Was in a rush, so no install pictures.

Used the existing wiring for the new map lights. There are 3 wires at the factory mirror. Black is ground, blue/white is constant 12v, white is ground trigger. Used the blue/white and the white, works perfect.

The dome lights are ridiculously bright. Lights up the whole front of the car. Going to have to change out the rear hatch light to an LED to match now.

Here are a couple finished pics, but the camera in my phone is not really the greatest.

Temp Sensor location:



Mirror mounted in place:




Lights off in the garage, door open. (yup I know there's a hole in the door. Previous owner put tweeters there ):

 

That looks great! Nice job

 

You can buy a **** auto-dimming mirror with compass, temperature, and dual map lights for $155 on Amazon.

 

awesome job man. How hard would it be to change the info in the mirror to red (want to match the t/a's interior ilummination)

 

Probably wouldn't be too hard. Would just need to find some transparent red film of some sort to tint the LCD display.

 

Good job! Those things are bright!

Edit; what did you need that big circuit board for if your not using the switches on it? Why not just power the little led circuit board?

 

The LED's themselves run on like 3 or 4 volts. It was just easier to use the whole thing. I'm sure I could have done it with resistors and just the LED's but I had the parts and the room.

 

The board contains the drivers for the LEDs which is better than just using resistors.

 

Good Job! I like it.