He is probaly talking about when they are lit up at night, the 5.5 gens donot have that blue outer portion like the 5 gens.

 

subscribing

 

Yes, they do. The only difference between cluster underlays is that a non-SE model will have 4 separate clusters as opposed to one continous one.

I wish there was an easier way for this to be done and I hope like hell that Silver can do it, but from everything I have tried the only real way to brighten the cluster is to remove the blue underlay.

 

************************************************** *******
*******UPDATE*******

I spent pretty much all day yesterday working on this project... man what a long day! Every single idea I had been shot down time after time. (And trust me, I had 6 different idea's)

After many hours of testing, placements, drilling, wiring, templates, and 20+ wasted leds due to over use, I have come to one final conclusion/course of action. And I sure it will work, but it is really not the way I wanted to go with this project. I will post pictures this Saturday when I finish the project.

Considering the new information, I will call this project a successful failure. I will release more information in my post on Saturday, but it will be later in the night so I can take some night pictures.

 

Damn... Im not even going to try any my ideas if you try 6 times with no sucess. I still cant wait to see how it turned out.

 

Yeah, don't bother.... trust me. I mean I had some damn impressive idea's... i even shocked myself. lol. Nissan just really made it hard to mod our gauges. If you want brighter gauges, you will need to take off the needles... there is no way getting around it.

But, I will still be able to help you guys out. Instead of selling my "item" to you make make them brighter, I will tell you how to do it, and also offer my services to do it for you for a price. I will provide detailed instructions either way.

more information, and the long awaited pics soon to come.

 

Okay, I have not forgotton about you guys, I just wanted to give another update. I made all the parts, and I was planning to do it yesterday (saturday) but we had some really nasty rain/wind, so it was a bad day. If tuesday is nice, I will do it then.

just wanted to keep you guys informed.

 

quit whoring your own thread and do it already!!

 

+1... hehe im only kidding, good luck with the modding. I'm gonna see what ideas i can come up with after i get out of school. I really want to improve the look of the gauges, im getting bored with these

 

Does anyone have an extra guage cluster there are some things I would like to try. I have done a bunch of stuff with LEDs and I think I can get this to work.

 

try a local junk yard

 

That doesnt really work to well around here, I love in a small town in FL. The junkyards almost hang up on you if you call up about anything not ford or chevy.

 

You are more then welcome to try, but I have spent a lot of time on this project... if you do try, I wish you the best of luck.

I have done a million things with LED's as well. My whole car is full of them. I have tried many diffrent ways to get this to work, and the only thing that works is, well wait to tomorrow for that. Here is a left of everything I tried:


1.) Just replace bulbs with led's (failed)
2.) Replace bulbs with multiple led's (failed)
3.) Design 4 leds to fit in stock bulb holder at different lengths pointing in ideal locations (failed)
4.) Drilling holes in on circuit board to add more led's in different spots (failed)
5.) Cutting off top of led to get rid of the lens that focus's the light (failed)
6.) Doing the same as above, but also dipping the very top for the led in chrome the light reflects in 360 degree's (failed)
7.) Drilling precise holes in the light channels so the led will fit inside the hole snugly, so the light channel will pick up optimum light (failed)

I am sure there is a few more I am forgetting, but I am at work so I am a bit distracted. Damn my job.

As you can see, I have tried so many different ways, and only one has worked. Tomorrow will be the day. Look for my post with pics, and no more talk about me post whoring my thread!

 

You guys stop giving this guy a hard time about whoring.

 

Did you tey using really bright LEDs with inverted lenses??

 

They do not make "really bright" inverted cone lenses. The highest I have seen are only 3-4k Mcd. That is nothing. I am currently using 14,000 mcd leds for this project shipped from Hong Kong. they are a nice pure white with slight hue of blue in them .

The nature of the inverted cone lenses prohibits a high mcd rating. however, if you find any at 10,000 + mcd for a fair price, you let me know. (don't think it will happen)

 

I think he meant that the 5.5 gens don't show that outer blue color on the gauges when they are lit. At least my 02 SE doesn't show any blue. Just white numbers and lines and red needles. I take it that the whole reason for Chris' project is because the 5.5 gens don't use the same style bulbs as the 00-01 maxes. Is this correct Chris?

Oh yeah, and does anyone know why the right side of the speedo and left side of the tach is dimmer than the rest of the gauges?

 

Yeah, the 02/03 guages supposedly have a blue coating on the back, but they do not APPEAR blue at all to the driver. Just a white-ish color, as described by DaBoxSE.

I never noticed that the right side of speedo and left side of tach were dimmer than the rest of the guages, but I'll take a look the next time I'm out at night.

On a side note, one thing I don't like about the 02/03 SE guages (not sure if this applies to earlier SE guages) is that, when the lights are on during dusk or when there is still some light outside, the numbers on the guages often blend in with the silver guage background. The numbers can become very difficult to read in this situation. Nissan should have put a thin black line around the numbers themselves so that when they light, you can still differentiate between the numbers and the guage backs.

 

Next to the nasty design of the e-brake handle where it goes into the center console (which I fixed by fitting with a leather boot), this is my other qualm about the interior of my car. The gauges are dim and horrible.

The first person/company to come up with a way to make them brighter and look decent gets my money, I'll say that.

 

I am retarded I didnt mean inverted lenses,inverted would be worthless they emit light in every direction but forward. I found the LEDs I was talking about but I need a damn cluster and cant find one at a junk yard anyone here selling one? or does anyone know of anyone selling one? The LEDs I am talking about are 25,000mcd with a 100 degree viewing angle instead of the 35 degree you have with normal leds.

Edit: I also found a couple 46,000 mcd with 270 degree angle but they are very exspensive for doing a dash.

 

I think you are the one that needs to do your homework. You can get led chips that are smaller than a dime that will light up a room, you just have to know where to look and be ready to spend money. So what, you order yours from hong kong do you get your car parts "overnighted from japan"? You should drop the elitist attitude I was trying to offer some suggestions and help.

Edit: apparently you or a mod deleted this post

 

I deleted my post since I thought it was too harsh on you. It was only up for 30 seconds.... why you are post about it now is beyond me. Yes, you are correct about those led's... but I am not talking about those leds... I am talking about normal 5mm, leds. The leds you are speaking about are not suitable for this project... never mind about the hefty price tag that comes with the led. I understand you were trying to offer help, but I went through all feasible options. The leds you are suggesting are just not the best idea, unless you guys want to spend $200+ on a brighter gauge.

 

Stupid question, but have you considered EL lighting?

 

We will see, I just need to get a spare cluster. Ohh and you can get 25k 5mm leds in white for about $10 /piece and cheaper in quantity. How many leds are you using.

 

I give up on this project, i just took apart my gauges, and they are diffrent then the gauges then my test gauges... so now my whole project/work is useless. I give up. for those who want to attemp this yourself on a SE max... HAVE A BLAST. this is the worst project i have attempted by far.

sorry to let you all down, but I am just fed up with this thing. i will get in more detail with it later, i am just to upset to talk about it now.

 

That's alright, man. You gave it your best shot. Nobody said it would be easy. Thanks for trying.

 

Everyone tries things that do not work.....at least you tried and now a lot of us that were going to try do not have to waste our time.

 

WAIT! my project isn't dead yet! I some what achived my goal... but i am not using my stock 02 gauge face. it is odd... the reason why i gave up is because my test gauge was off a 02 GLE maxima, and they have a diffrent face then the SE model. the SE model has the silver on it, as the GLE has a completly black face. the problem being, is that SE face has the "blue backing" molded into the face... i couldn't sand it off. BUT the GLE face i could sand off the blue backing. so i just used my custom led setup in my gauges, and took the GLE face and put it on my SE cluster! the resuts? a bright white gauge!

I took 6 pictures, but both my cardmain, and my other website are having problems with adding pictures, so i will try again tomorrow when i get home from work. I like them a lot... now i just have to calibrate the needles. lol. i will post pics asap!

 

NO!!! I wanna see 'em now! Haha. I will host, e-mail me the pics at bdua@bucknell.edu. I can have them up in a second.

 

host them on Photobucket.

 

PICS!!!!!!









One of the bulbs blew out in my computer lcd on spedo.. but all in all, i like them! you can tell the diffrence from the stock light in the lcd, and the white on the gauges... a huge improvement.

ill post more pics in a bit

 

Nice!!!!!!!!

 

Looks pretty good! The light seems to be distributed very evenly, while being just a tad dim on the bottom right of the speedo and left of the tacho. I guess these things are so bright that you have to dim the camera down significanly because I can't even see the needles in the first two.

 

I actually turn the brightness down on mine a bit. They are plenty bright enough for me. Anyone else?

 

Must be those old eyes.

(J/K) Personally, I think the stock guages are plenty bright compared to most other cars' I've seen, but the newer Honduhs and Toyolas have really bright guages in a lot of the cars. And it definitely looks cooler at night.

 

you could see the needle's because i didn't put the needles on yet! those pics were take like 20 seconds after i installed the gauges back in the car... some of the pics were taken before i even put thr pannels back on.

 

Well, that would explain the large white holes in the middle of the guages. Man, you must have really been in a rush to check the guages out!

Too bad no more silver faces.

 

Two more pics just uploaded....

 

lol, yes I was.... after failure after failure, i was rather curious on if it worked. I miss the silver gauges... but i will see what i can do.

 

nice job!!!
those look bright as hell!!!!