LED's in all my gauges and switches *PICS*
 

Just wanted to show you guys the LED stuff I did to my car a couple of weeks ago. Finally got some time to post some pics. I also did the red cellophane mod on the clock and Bose radio while I was at it. I highly recommend anyone thinking about these mods to do them. They're well worth the time and effort.

http://memimage.cardomain.net/member...82_16_full.jpg http://memimage.cardomain.net/member.../686582_17.jpg

http://memimage.cardomain.net/member...82_20_full.jpg http://memimage.cardomain.net/member...82_19_full.jpg

http://memimage.cardomain.net/member...82_18_full.jpg

Sweet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

nice man... ive been wanting to do this also but havent had the time... good job

looks great man, thanks for the pictures, gives me an idea what i wanted to do, i wanted the white LED's too, whta do u guys think looks better?

red or white?

again nice job man

:clap: looks good

That is Damn nice.

I'd go with white, irish. For some reason i would believe the red would be more dull rather than bright

looks great! do you have a writeup?

Guys, I do led installs in NYC. If anyone wants, they can ship parts to me and I will install leds and ship them back.

Thanks guys for compliments. I don't have a writeup, I used the writeups in the Stickies to do the window switches, A/C controls, hazard / defrost buttons and cellophane clock mod. I also found a writeup on how to take apart the Bose headunit.

Using all those writeups above, doing the Bose headunit LED's and cellophane mod and cruise control switch was similar.

I also did the security light from the OEM alarm, the coin holder next to the lighter and the low fuel light. I forgot to take a pic of the security light and coin holder and the fuel light I have to wait until my fuel goes low. The fuel light was funny though, it didn't turn brighter orange like I expected... it's now bright lime green. I don't care, at least I can see it a lot better, but the color change must be similar as to why the red cellophane makes the clock white.

Thanks to all .org member for their writeups and wariow for the group deal on LED's.

Once I get the other pictures up I'll put them on my web page but I won't make another thread just to show them.

http://www.cardomain.com/memberpage/686582

Anyway, glad you all liked.

yeah that solidifies my decision to go white.. instead of blue.

lookin good, must've taken a butt-load of time though.

Nice, I Want Those Same Color!!

looks really good anyone thinking about doing this i would suggest white or blue rather than red... i had red and they are dull and dont look as good

igobuk did you do your gauges too? id like to see pics of them i recently opted for reverse glow and blue leds throughout but wanted to see how leds looked behind the stock gauges

blue
and +1 nice job!

I didn't do the gauges yet. I'm waiting on super white 5 LED 194 bulbs from superbrightleds.com that are much brighter than the inverted cone LED's and also have no hotspots. Once I do those I'll post pics of that too.

That looks good. For some odd reason when i did my window switches the light looks all uneven and wrong. How can u change the color of the watch like u did?

i have full blue led interior and i would like to change mine after seeing that! beutiful job man

is it hard to do
cuz my harzard light went out the other day....


and when i mean hard...i mean its it hard to solder ( i have never done it before)

damn thats nice as hell. how long did it take to do each item?

how the hell did you get the LEDs in the bose.....there is no space for resistors....where did you put them? dont say just one soldered in the illumination wire cuz thats just to easy.

I beg to differ! I did the red leds in my car and they light up the whole door panel at night! Give me a few minutes and I'll go take pics of them (I can't believe I haven't done that already, I guess I forgot about them...)

Completely DISAGREE. My red LEDs a re pretty bright. So that is only an opinion statement.

Nonone seems was able to resolve the issue of dull climate control buttons. Nonbody's up for challenge?

It's dull in picture, but not in real.
http://memimage.cardomain.net/member...99_47_full.jpg

Wow. That's very nice. I should so do that this winter when the Max is ripped to pieces. That'd be very nice... instructions for that would rock.

And of course, I have to do blue for the original owner's namesake.

GJ on the install. was the cruise control hard? I took it apart and it looked like a PITA.

Where are the gauges? :gotme: ;)

damnn that looks nice!!! what mcd did you use? those look perfect... a nice clean white color.

what resistors did you use. i 've been refraining from doing this because i don't know the voltage or watts. i wanted to do the domelight. any help.

its ABOUT time someone did it in white, tired of red or blue :)

any pics of the guages?? :P

Wow, thanks again for all the responses.

Three days. All worth it. :)

http://www.vqpower.com/v2/modules.ph...howpage&pid=59

Well I've done a lot of soldering on computer boards and stuff so I'm pretty handy with the soldering iron. Just read the stickies and see if you're up for it. Soldering isn't hard, just practice on an old radio or something first. Very handy thing to learn anyway. :)

Took me 3 days total, I did a little each day, ran down tested it, next item and so on. Don't know how long on each but the Bose took a whole day by itself. Mind you a whole day is when I'm home from work, not like 16 hours or anything.

There is extremely little room for the LED's and resistors but the there is enough room. This is why this took me the most time, you have to bend and twist things so they fit nicely in there and then once it's all together I still had to move things because I found that some of the buttons weren't working as they ended up resting on resistors. I did eventually find room for it all and all the buttons and everything works perfect. The easy part was making the display white.

The cruise control was only marginally harder than the defroster button as they both have two bulbs but the insides of the cruise control work a little different. I did have to take apart the switch a couple of times because a little slider in there kept moving but I finally put it back together correctly. The gauges are coming, I'm waiting for a special set of 194 LED's but superbrightleds.com is out of stock of the superwhite for now. I'll post pics when I get them done.

I got the LED's from the group deal info wariow gave me, I'm not 100% sure but I believe they were 10,000 MCD.

I used 470 ohm resistors for each LED and I used 3mm and 5mm for different things but always the same resistors. All worked great.

I got the LED's from the group deal info wariow gave me, I'm not 100% sure but I believe they were 10,000 MCD.


The leds in the GD were 4000mcd

vlad i didnt mean to say that red is dull just compared to blue and white.... it almost seemed like a strain too look at the red since i have driven with both.... what did you use behind your gauges superbrightleds.com bulbs... also the key ring is really easy to do i suggest doin that red for the super clean look

my mom had drove my car before too and she complained the red wasnt bright enough and i had 4000 mcd reds in there

yours looks good i was just lettin everyone know colors like blue and white are a little brighter


has anyone done this with like orange or yellow just curious?


igobuk i noticed you didnt do the slider you can just pop that off and slide a 3mm led in real easy

What slider ?

Because I have some extra LED's and some spare time. :)

I was going to do the ignition switch next.

Hmm, 4,000 seems low. I'll see if I can find my PayPal transaction, I think I mentioned it in there somewhere.

If anyone knows how to determine the brightness let me know.

the slider from hot to cold that just pops off to reveal a flat rectangular green led just look at the polarity on that led and it pulls out not soldered in

you can then just cut a white 3mm led's leads to the same length and slide it in
its a little bigger but it fits

Sweet :doublethu

Ahh, I did see that LED but thought I would have to either find an LED shaped like it or file down a 3mm to it's shape. I'll have to see now. And the slider fits back on top of the LED ??

Thanks for the info.

yea it fits back on the 3mm is a little bigger but it fits on and comes off also cuz i had red in there and now i have blue

also did you do the indicator lights under the buttons white just curious?

Very good question... I did not. I did one and tested it and it was BRIGHT. Way too bright for me to use at night, it'd be in the corner of my eye ALL the time.

I didn't do the indicator lights at all and I didn't do the other defroster bulb or cruise control bulb for the same reasons. I'd be blinded and / or annoyed. I'm looking now for a much lower MCD LED to change those out, although I may just leave it, those don't really bother me.

The slider and the ignition switch however are almost definites.

:)

I just checked my PayPal transaction and you were right, they were 4,000 MCD but in white I guess they are extremely bright.

Here's a picture of them when I had my Bose headunit apart. The ones circled in red are the stock bulbs so you can see the two brightnesses (is this a word) side by side. And you can also see why I opted NOT to do some of the other LED's.

http://memimage.cardomain.net/member...82_14_full.jpg

Looks good, and glad you did somthing different, blue is sooo played out anymore. ive thought about doing all my lights in white like u did for a while now, but im just too lazy to do it. maybe some day in time but for now ill rock the green. props on the conversion, looks 100Xs better! :ben:

Thanks dude. All the compliments from the .orgers and everyone else that sees them makes the work worth it just a little bit more.

:)