DigitalMDX - Acura MDX Illuminated LED Cup Holders

A friend of mine was interested in a Toyota Scion, so I went with him to have a look. One of the options that was offered was LED illuminated cup holders. They looked pretty cool in the brochure so I decided the DigitalMDX needed some of these. So here is what I did...

First step was to pop out the cup holder following these instructions: HondaAcuraWorld Instructions Once I had the cup holder out, I figured I'd pull the shifter panel out too and do some cleaning... the little crevices like to gather lots of dust and dirt...
Once you get the panel pulled up, you'll need to disconnect the Driver and Passenger Seat Heater switches. Each switch has a little button at the bottom middle of the connector. Press this in and unplug the connector.
You can see all the filth that gathers around the switches...
Just press in on the metal clip and the switch will easily push out through the top of the shifter panel.
Now you have access the all the grime. Carefully take some samples and send them off to the lab...
Anyway, I digress... Back to the LED Cup Holders...
I decided to put the LEDs in the back of the cup holder shining towards the front of the car. There is one of those rubber flaps directly overhead that will work nicely as a "sun shade" to keep the light to a minimum when it is on and without a cup in the holder.
Here you can see the little rubber "sun shade". You will want to make sure that you center your hole between the bottom rim and the lower "sun shade" notch. The LED holders have a ring around them, so you want to make sure that ring is above the bottom rim of the cup holder.
Find the magic spot and drill away...
You can see that there is just enough room for the LED holders ring to clear both the bottom rim of the cup holder and the notch above
Your friendly neighborhood Radio Shack will have the goods that you will need, including the LED holders.
Radio Shack will also have the bright Blue LEDs that I used for this project. They'll also try and get you a "free" cell phone too... again, I'm off topic...
Pop in an LED holder and then insert the LED!
Repeat the process for the other side...
Solder on some wires and protect them with heat shrink tubing. I used electrical tape to secure the wires to the cup holder... Don't forget the "D" in LED stands for Diode. You'll want to make sure you have the positive and negative going to the right leads on the LED.
Put the cup holder back into the MDX and start fishing wires up through the center console. The center console side panel pops off for easier access!
I used a push button switch to turn the LEDs on and off. I also added a potentiometer to control brightness of the LEDs incase I feel the need for "mood lighting" from the cup holders (?????)... I don't know... It works and it's nice to be able to turn them down a bit.
Attach everything to a power source and your ready to go. Remember, the LEDs are 3.7 volts (4.5 volts max), so if you use the MDX as a power source be sure to reduce the voltage down to something the LEDs can use.
All I can say is the pictures don't do the project justice. I'm very happy with the results. It looks really cool with the drinks lit up in a dark MDX.


The whole project probably took less than 3 hours total. It was an easy project and I couldn't be happier with the results...

Several people have written to me asking about getting power to the LEDs. (Sorry Ed, your e-mail address failed). Depending on how complicated you want to make the project, one of the following will do:

DigitalMDX's LED Cup Holder Mod
Illuminated LED Cup Holders