987.1CS glove box light fuse?

Hey! I was upgrading my interior to LED lighting. You know how it's wise to test everything before reassembling? Well, the globe box LED was working, so I put the metal cover over the back side while it was still plugged in. Got a pretty spark, and then the socket stopped getting power. Anyone know where the fuse is located for this? Sigh... I'll check out the wiring diagram later if not. (Note I removed the diode on the bottom left, thinking it was maybe a fuse)

Question or two: That's the diode you removed? How did you remove it? It appears to be part of the circuit, possibly to prevent switch arcing.. the light is unlikely to work without it. If you put the regular bulb back in - does it light up? If not - I'd suggest getting our a voltmeter or test light, and seeing if you have voltage going to the two pins at the bottom of the light fixture (as oriented above). You should see 12.6V on those pins when the door is open (and you'd expect the light to be on).

@deilenberger thanks for the reply! Yup. Just popped it out. It's just held in by clips on each side. I did do that, but I read 0V between the two prongs in the socket. There's some fuse I've burned out.

I'm not certain it's as simple as a fuse.. I tried tracking down the path/fuse for the lights using the interactive diagrams on AllDataDIY. The diagrams are typically a wonder to work with - if one can ID the component that needs looking at - it will light up all the circuitry between it and the power source. What I see happening is - nothing is as simple as a door switch that turns the light on when the door opens. The light is controlled by one of the control modules that gets a CANBUS signal from the door switch, and the module provides the power to the light. The module also probably takes care of other things. I believe it's done via the drivers door control module, but can't swear to it without hooking up my PIWIS or more likely Foxwell diagnostics tool to the car and looking at each module to see what the modules control. If that can be done - with the Foxwell there should be a command that will tell the module to turn on the light and turn it off. It would be of value to see if this has any effect on power getting to the light. I hate to think of it - but it could be - that the spark you saw when shorting the device somehow caused the driver for that circuit inside the control module to give up the ghost. In that case - the only way of getting your light back is a new (or used) replacement module. When I have time - if you haven't solved it - I'll try to remember to hookup and take a look at where it's controlled from. One might hope that the earlier Boxster/Cayman 987 series didn't rely on Canbus and control modules for things as simple as an overhead light - but I think you'll find everything on the 987 (and subsequent models) is Canbus controlled. It's a logical and good engineering practice solution to increasingly complex vehicle electronics.

Not sure what replacement bulb you used, or how it is to be installed but a few things lead me to some questions. First, you say the diode ‘clips’ in, which is unusual since I’ve mostly seen them soldered in place. Second, looking at this from one picture and angle, it appears that the LED light source is pointed up in the picture, not down towards the lens, putting the light source pointing at the metal cover. Maybe that’s the way it is designed, or only fits one way. Also, and I’m sure you are aware of this by now, trying to affix the metal cover while the contacts are powered, with the visual arc you witnessed, created some new issues. But I believe the fuse panel at the drivers side footwell is where that fuse is located. A test meter can easily determine if it is a blown fuse. Beyond that, it may be a module as deilenberger has suggested. I replaced all of my interior and exterior lighting with LED ’s and did not experience any issues, except for the need to add some inline resistors on a few to fool the Can-bus into believing they were of higher resistance. Wishing you luck in tracking down this gremlin.

Could you let me know how you got the clear plastic top out of the metal casing? Tried for an hour last night and couldn’t get it separated.

It's a bit difficult at first, but I got pretty good at it. Here are some tips. You'll have to bend the metal slightly, but don't worry too much, because it's malleable. Get a sharp blade, and use it to pry the metal up slightly to give you a little gap on each side. You need to give yourself some gap. You can start from the edges and work to the plastic pins that holds the cover on. Just push the metal up slightly. I give my self a gap on all 4 sides first (which it's a bit difficult to avoid undoing the opposite side when you're prying one side, ik). Once every side is pried up, and there's a little gap, it's easy to fully pry each side over the plastic bump that holds the metal cover. After you pry the metal over 3 of them, you can just pull the whole metal cover off. Super easy to reinstall. Just clips right back on. Just don't short it like me lol.