The original thread on how to do this is here and the 'revisited' thread is here.

This new write up is on changing the illuminated sill plate color also, but to red for Copernicus. Some new and good things to note before I proceed.

1. When I received all the parts from Copernicus, the new kit Ed from www.beingseen.com supplied had a completely different inverter. No longer do we have the super simple four wires to a little tiny cube of about 1¼" on a side, but a slightly bigger box with a power receptacle and a plug for the high voltage output to the EL Tape. This box also has a switch that lets you change from on-flashing to off to on-solid. Quite nifty. If you leave this in a location where you can actually get to the switch, you can choose what mode you want it in every time you get in the car. You could even cut out the switch and extend the wires so the switch could be remotely located. Although that would take a bit more 'hacking' of the little box, but it's more than easily do-able.



2. The factory sill plates had a different color inverter box(green this time) but seemed to be the same as the previous unit in size. I'll have to verify the voltage against one of my old 'yellow' units I have left over. These sill plates also had the hot glue securing the wire connections through the plastic. This took a bit of work to remove, but it came out and didn't damage the aluminum outer plate or the pastic housing.



And before i go any further...

NOTE: Crossfires don't come from the factory with Illuminated Sill Plates. These are an accessory available normally through your Chrysler dealer for a cost of around $350. I obtained my original set through a user on this board who decided not to install theirs. I obtained the set for MAYAman's project from Wyckoff Chrysler, Inc. Copernicus supplied all parts for this project.



The original plates come as a light blue color when lit. (Think of the old Indiglo watches.)

From www.beingseen.com was the "Crossfire Conversion Kit". In this project there were about 5 feet of 1" EL Tape in the Red color (florescent red to be specific. Think of an orange-ish-red.)

This "Kit" is the same as the previous in that they put on the connections, included a single inverter and leave the tape in a single piece.

As you can see from the pictures, both "kits" arrived in good shape.

The general steps to the tutorial haven't really changed much from either of the two previous tutorials except that this time around, I used a basic butter knife to try it in the least technical way.

Tools:

1 Small spool of solder (I have about 50 times what is needed, get the smallest little container they have)
1 Cordless Soldering Iron ($20 or so from Radio Shack) NOTE: This is NOT a 'cold' soldering iron. It gets HOT in about 7 seconds.
1 Butter Knife
1 Utility knife (For opening the boxes, cutting and stripping the wires)



1. Carefully pry up one corner (nearest the outside edge) and then gradually slice away at the adhesive strip holding the aluminum along the long edge. I got under the corner and pried up carefully until I could get the blade past the adhesive strip, then using the leverage of the butter knife, pried up carefully but steadily until the adhesive began to let go on both long edges. It did go quite fast in a few places and caught me off guard, so slow and steady leverage pressure increases here, it's not a nail we're trying to remove. CAUTION, this technique could easily bend the Stainless Steel plate, GO SLOW!!!









2. You can use the same technique for the short edges. Slow, steady pressure until the adhesive releases.

3. You may have to push the hot glue through the hole in order to pry the aluminum plate up on that side.

4. Once the plate is clear of the plastic sill base, clip the wires about 1/2" from the original EL tape.

5. Carefully and SLOWLY pry away the original EL tape from the two clear adhesive strips. The strips should remain on the clear lenses on the aluminum plate. If some of the clear adhesive comes up and stretches, slow down and afterward, trim off the stretched section as it will ball up. This time around as the adhesive strips started to pull up from the lenses, I used the butter knife again to 'slice' the adhesive away from the original EL Tape. Seemed to work pretty good and I got the strips back down on to the lenses in all but one or two areas.

 

6. Cut the new EL tape the exact same length or a half inch or so longer as the original EL tape.





7. There was no colored film with this project, but if your color choice has colored film... - Cut the colored film the same width as the lit part of the original EL tape (about 7/8 of an inch). This should be wide enough to cover half of the clear adhesive strips when centered along the two strips. Depending upon the length of colored film you are supplied, you may have to cover the area in sections. Just make sure to cover the clear lenses completely. I don't know if it would make a difference but I didn't want to see white light bleeding out of the letters.

8. Place the new EL tape in the same position as the original. This should have the wires and connections right at the factory hole through the plastic.



9. Thread the new wires through the hole and re-assemble the aluminum plate/lens/EL Tape assembly to the plastic base. Once everything is lined up, press the assembly and base together firmly along both long edges until it's completely flat with the base.



10. Repeat for the second sill.

11. Cut the new wires about 3 inches from their connectors. For this project, I left on the two feet or so of wire on each new EL Tape and just soldered them to the old connector wiring.

12. Strip a 1/4 inch from the ends and then strip 1/4 inch from the ends of one of the factory connector wires you cut off the original EL tape.

13. Twist the wires together and wrap with electrical tape or heat shrink tubnig. (I soldered mine for better conduction and reliablity.)



14. Repeat steps 12 through 14 for the second sill plate.

15. Cut off the Yellow factory inverter 1/4 inch from it's factory connector. (This one was green in color.)



16. With the new inverter being quite different, this step changes a bit. Connect the wires from the factory harness as follows. Red (from factory harness) to Black with White stripe (from new inverter power cable). Brown (from factory harness) to Black (from new inverter power cable). Two Blacks (from factory harness) to the two Green wires (from new inverter EL power cable). The last connection is for AC current, so it doesn't matter which Black goes to which Green.

17. Cover joints with Electrical tape or shrink wrap. (Again, I soldered my connections.)



18. Test.



19. Ship to Copernicus... or install if it's yours.

Cheers!