Been looking at these, and want to know if anyone knows if they are LEDs or a different light source for these. Also, if you have these in your car, can you post some close up pics.

Also, I would like to find the part numbers.

 

mugga, I am thinking about finding this question out here myself. I am looking to do the illuminated vents a little different than jag did by putting in some RGB LEDs. That way, I can pick the color I want the vents and other accessory lighting to be. But, right now, working 72 hour weeks, I don't really have a lot of free time to be working on a project like this.

If I had to take a guess, based on how the light shines in the vents, they are LEDs.

 

They are LEDs, the same ones they use in the door cards, etc. The ring contains an integrated light pipe to carry the light around them.

I can get you the Jag part numbers when I am next home, but when I last looked the cost was around £800 with discount for all six vents which made it too expensive for the reward.

However, full sets do appear on eBay quite regularly now as later cars which either had them as standard or where optionally specced with them are broken up. I bought two complete sets from a German car breaker for €150 a set (all six). One I fitted to my XJL, the other I kept as a spare in case I get another in the future.

Spotting them on eBay is easy because they have little cables coming out of them, whereas the non-illuminated versions don't.

Fitting them is quite fiddly as the cars are not pre-wired. The rears are easy and can be done with the centre floor console still fitted by popping out the rear panel and splicing into the lighter illumination. The fronts are a bit harder because you have to remove a lot of dash trim pieces to get access for the new wiring. Note that you may not need to remove the vent brackets as the vents themselves pull straight out. (DO NOT pull the front bit as it may break, but look inside with a torch and you will see a cross member near the rear that you can hook behind and pull.) If you can get a cable rod to the rear of the vent you could pull a cable through. Use the front lighter illumination circuit for the supply.

The connectors are available for little money. Or you could cut off the vent ones and fit your own.

 

That's a good idea, referring to the RGBs. I think it would be difficult to find some small ones to fit.

Thanks! That's some great info. I'm hoping to find one to somewhat reverse engineer. I guess I have to keep checking Ebay and hope one pops up.

 

Do you have any photos or diagrams on where to tie in the front center vents and the two opposite side front vents. There are four as you know.

By the way do you know what fuse was originally intended for these. The wiring diagrams everywhere are quite unclear.

 

I spliced mine into the switch illumination circuit (as the name suggests it supplies all the switches that illuminate, and is controlled by the roller button to dim and brighten them). It is the same circuit used if they are fitted to the car from the factory. Because they are all LEDs they are PWM controlled by the central junction box (JNC - behind the rear seat back in the centre) which does not use a separate fuse.

The blue with white stripe wire in position 2 of the lighter sockets front and back are all on that circuit, and is where I took my wires from. The grounds can really be anywhere in those areas, but for convenience I took them from the black wires in position 3 at the same lighter sockets.

I have attached the relevant pages from the electrical schematics for the switch illumination circuits for reference.

 

Thanks Dave, I saw some wiring diagrams which are a little different in the various years but all use the Blu/wht wire coded wires. While I think the two center rear vents can be done in the ways you suggest I'm not quite clear on where on the front two centers were done. sounds like the blu/wht are buried under the vent duct and have to be pulled out to connect? I was thinking the clock also may be an option and it's right there next to the vents.








now the real unknown is where to find the blu/wht wiring for the two front outer vents. Where can these wires be found without taking the whole dash apart. are they also found through the vent openings?
I also want to thank you for taking the time to help fellow forum members. I wish everyone was like that. Regards, Tom

 

For the fronts I took them from the front lighter socket. You need to remove the front centre stack anyway so it is all easily accessible to splice in, and it will be much easier than trying to splice behind the clock.

Unfortunately I did not take any photos when I did mine, but from memory:
- Remove the side/end panels from the dash
- Remove the glove box to make accessing the passenger side vent easier. You still need to wedge your hand up there, but hooked tools (e.g. Draper 51764) will help (and you really need them to pull out the vents without breaking them).
- For the driver side you can remove the lower knee trim to make it easier.

I removed the entire dash because I wanted to check how it was done and did not realise that you can just pull the vents out and replace them without replacing the plastic brackets (which are screwed in from behind). If you don't remove the dash you should be able to route the new cable for the passenger vent easily enough (be careful around the airbag) but the driver side you might find it easier to route the cable down below the steering column and across rather than along the top else you'll need to remove the instrument cluster and the various leather wrapped trim pieces.

I've attached some sections from the workshop manual that cover removing most of those trims bits. Note they cover a lot of extra steps so read through them all to pick out the bits you need.

 

Hey, Dave...

Did you ever find those part numbers for me? I REALLY need to find out how the wiring for the LED is ran inside and behind the vents. I can't for the life of me, find a picture online.

 

The WERS part no's printed on them are:
BW9M-19C893-AC
BW9M-19C696-AC
BW9M-014A24-AC
BW9M-014A25-AC
BW9M-19K617-AC
BW9M-19K6**-AC (my label was torn so I don't know those two characters, but two vents will be identical so I suspect they are '17')

If you are looking on eBay and similar sites they are the ones with little connectors visible. The vents are physically different in that the black plastic ring that you grip to adjust them is an opaque clear plastic on the illuminated ones with the LEDs inside.

You won't find any decent photos of where to run the wiring. The best method would be to print out the wiring diagrams and workshop manual steps I posted above, then go and sit in the car with them and visualise where the connectors and parts are. There are two ways to run the cables - the OEM routes (hard to access, will require dismantling the dash almost entirely) or via cable rods (easier, but you need to be careful not to run the wiring against the dash reinforcement, or interfere with the passenger airbag.

 

Just received some illuminated vents, that I purchased off Ebay. I connected them to the 12v battery, no light. I then hooked them up to an electroluminescent transformer, which is AC current, and it lit up. So they are not LEDs, but rather an EL panel/wire in the opaque ring or the ring itself is conductive. I plan to take it apart to inspect it.

I'm curious to see if I can duplicate the effect

 

They are definitely LEDs. There are 2 in each vent in series with 6.2kΩ 1% resistors which shine sideways into a light pipe.

There is a diode in line with the GND (black wire), so I suspect your 12V battery source was either connected backwards or had insufficient power, and your AC source worked half of the time but the frequency was enough that your eyes did not notice the flashing.

 

FYI for those that don't have these. These are very cool and look great but at night they do reflect in the windows (all of them) and can be distracting. I kind of wish there was a switch to turn them off.

 

Only LED's?,... you really know how to take the mystery out of life.
I was hoping for some secret alien tech from area 51,....Maybe LED's are from aliens?

 

I wonder why would they use AC to run the LEDs... never seen that kind of LEDs being used in cars. Interesting. I think I want to disassemble my vents to investigate.

Thanks for the picture. Do you have any more? or able to give some tips on taking it apart?

 

I wouldn't recommend doing it unless you know you have a faulty unit. Taking apart is easy, but do so in a well lit area as there is a lot of alignment needed to get them back together again! You can test is easily using the illuminated trunk/boot finisher connector in the trunk as it is the same connector fed from the same supply.

If you do need to disassemble...

1) Remove the retaining ring if fitted. It is the rear black plastic ring that screws into the car. You remove it by depressing the four metal tangs and pulling it off. Watch the cable to ensure you don't rip it.
2) Remove the silver plastic part, which will split it into the three main components. There are tiny retaining clips all the way around - carefully pry them up and pull each side up until all are released. Break one and you can recover; break two and you've killed it.
3) When you pull the silver part off the base you will also split the central adjustable part of the vent with the knob on from the base, which is held on with a keyed shaft. The section containing the LEDs, as shown in my photo above, needs to be unclipped from the base of that part. It pulls off quite easily, but remember the orientation as it is not symmetrical!
4) When reassembling, clip the LED section to the rear of the knob first, then full close the vent flaps by hand, rotate the knob fully clockwise to the closed position, and align the cable such that it comes out straight into the top part and not at an angle. The plastic fins should align with those on the base. Press firmly until it clicks, and then clip in the silver part. (They all go together in once go - you'll figure that out when holding it.)
5) After assembly you may need to slide back the plastic heat shrink to cover the red/black cables so they are not visible through the front. A jewellers screwdriver or pick is helpful for that.