Licence plate lighting, how can I make it brighter on my 96 Civic EX (ej8)
 

Alright I know this is not such a technical question, maybe a dinky question but I really want to improve nightime visibility of my rear licence plate especially cause it's personalized I don't need ti hide it I wanna show it and brighten it up.

I noticed that it's so dim because instead of a chrome reflector housing for licence plate bulb, it's white plastic. here's what ive' tried:

LED's: too dim incorrect angle

Xenon bulbs: little brighter than original bulbs but still not bright enough


Can you guys give me suggestions? Also regaurding the white plastic light housing how can I make it a very reflective chrome housing??

Re: Licence plate lighting, how can I make it brighter on my 96 Civic EX (Rayz_Si)
 

you should research LED's more before you count them out as too dim or even the incorrect angle.
There are several ones that would work for you.
Radio shack has several good ones. If you wire them in series you can use more to up the voltage.
Say if you have 3v LED's, wire four of them in series and then you get 12volts.

Re: Licence plate lighting, how can I make it brighter on my 96 Civic EX (johnecon2001)
 

sounds good, do i need to wire in resistors?

Re: Licence plate lighting, how can I make it brighter on my 96 Civic EX (Rayz_Si)
 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Rayz_Si &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">sounds good, do i need to wire in resistors?</TD></TR></TABLE>

Search around to find the answer to this one, I'm no electronics whiz when it comes to that. I have no idea how LED's are not bright enough... those little suckers produce on hell of a lot of light.

If one LED is not doing what you'd like, I suggest a series too.

Rich

or you could just use an old h3 hid bulb and blind people https://honda-tech.com/forums/images/smilies/emwink.gif

bringing this back from the dead. Any ideas to brighten up the rear plate. I love how the new lexus is350 plate looks. Really bright almost almost blue. Maybe chroming the housing and better bulb...

btw. vehicle is a 94 ej

I can't recall what new IS350 license plates look like at night, but I found that the lenses for the license plate lights on Civics collect dirt, dust and bugs. Remove the lens and remove the rubber seal from them and then clean the lenses.

They make chrome tape that you can put around the plastic housing to "brighten" Things up a bit.

Like stated before find some bright white LED's and wire them up together. Don't do just one LED in each one. Buy some 2 or 3v LED's and wire them up in series. No need for resistors if you do it right. for 2v led's you iwll need 6 LED's per bulb and for the 3v ones you can use 4 and face them toward the plate and it should be plenty bright. try to make the light spread out don't face them all to one point but face the outer ones out and the center ones a little less toward the outside also. I don't know if that helps but I made an LED trunk light and LED cabin light and they are ten times brighter than the stock bulbs.

Oh and I got my LED's from ebay for like a pack of 20 for 10 bucks.

led bulbs? i have a friend that has them..and they seem alright.. i check to see if the angles off and possibly get a pic..he has a 4 door though

Call it rice, but I think it looks clean. Newer cars such as the lexus is350's come standard with brighter plate lights. some examples below

http://www.ijdmtoy.com/ebay/iJDMTOY/LP/LP14.jpg

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j1...s/DSC_0903.jpg

http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s...obtan/post.jpg

these might do the trick

http://www.superbrightleds.com/store...mages/4410.jpg

and just for grins while i was researching this

http://www.ijdmtoy.com/ebay/iJDMTOY/Panel/Panel_08.jpg

http://www.ijdmtoy.com/ebay/iJDMTOY/...ewPanel_05.jpg

http://www.ijdmtoy.com/ebay/iJDMTOY/Panel/Panel_07.jpg

Anyone got a link on where to get the dome leds and the license plate ones?

autolumination.com

I've used these units in my buddies MR2 and they're damned bright for dome's and will work wonderfully for plate lights...
http://a763.g.akamai.net/7/763/1644/...4/img8/img.jpg

Now if you want extreme dome light, I modified the plastic lense and I have one of these in red as my dome light:
http://www.oznium.com/product_photos/large/1773.jpg

do you have any pics of the flood light in action?

I think it looks pretty darn good. Does it hook up to the rear harness? My situation is that I dont even have any lisenseplate lights cause I did a hatch swap and have yet to figure out how to get my harness in there

I just did a rear harnes wire tuck and the harness is all inclusive for the rear. nevermind mine is a coupe. I would imagine it would be all the same. Mine came out of the rear light harness. Man, i noticed youre in RR. I am starting to see more of us from ATX area on here. How bout that wicked fog today...

http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t...nightflood.jpg
a crappy cellphone night shot but it kinda gets the point across..

those units come with several connectors to plug into alot of different sockets but you can always hard wire/solder them in as needed (I'd stick with the plug n play option)...

all that light is produced by 1 led flood light?

Lol, Did you do a write up on that tuck? Now you have me interested. Lol fog was nice. I drove lime creek and city park either way though. FWD drifting the whole damn way

yea just a single unit...not the prettiest but it's the only way to make it fit and have it set up plug n play style:
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t...DX/domeoff.jpg

I just have some 5-way LEDs for my rear license plate lights.

I've got these for my plate lights:
http://www.wardenjp.com/1wled93.jpg
http://www.wardenjp.com/1wled58.jpg

a crappy cellphone night pic
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t.../NightView.jpg

how would you know what kind of bulb to get?