Ok, a few questions

1- Does the 5.5 gen max use bulbs or LED's to illuminate the Speedo Cluster?
2- Has anyone tried replacing the bulbs with brighter LED's? Its just so dim compared to other cars that ive driven.
3- For those who have done a LED makeover, what size, and or shape and where should i buy?

Thanks for your input

02 GLE -94,000 miles

 

I don't think they are dim, it's perfect for the dark, won't distract you.

 

there is a huge write-up for doing this. metalmax? did it.

 

well my problem is that im distracted by the fact that i already took my sunglasses off.

 

you wear sunglasses in the dark?
or you want see the light in daytime?

 

not able to pull anything up by medalmax
I guess when it warms up Ill pull the cluster out to see if i can get access to the bulbs

 

be more specific about your problem please and maybe everyone can help.. i didnt understand the posts above at all

 

He is having the same problem as me. The instrument cluster is very dim at night. He wants to know if anyone has upgraded to LEDS or brighter bulbs so the instument cluster is brighter at night.

 

Problem = dash is too dim. Looking to put LED's behind the speedometer, tachometer, fuel guage, and Water temp guages.

I want to try to put LED's in the place of the bulbs. This would hopefully make it brighter

So in order for me to do this without soldering, i need to buy twist in or wedge style bulbs #74. If the Max uses LED's from the factory then i have no course of action to take.

Has anyone done this kind of mod?

> Emailed Courtesy Nissan to get the scoop on how the dash is illuminated, theyve been super helpful in the past. i will share input when they get back to me

 

ohh gotcha..

there was a partial write-up about this i beleive.. but the person bought LED light bulbs from a website and with little mods it fit right into place..

sorry im not a big help but at least we know what your issue is..

goodluck

 

LEDs are directional light. You will get hot spots. LED are not the end all be all answer.

I did put LED in the dash, but I had to sand and shape them to get the necessary light output.

Multiple leds in a single base pointing in different directions "might" help.

And you want to look for Metal Maxima.

 

Looks like Metal Maxima's posts are all gone

Colonel what bulb base type did you try?

 

something is wrong since his last post from search is in 06...he had a huge write-up about doing this that he posted last year.

 

I like my dim, the alpine dvd player blinds me already anyway

 

^^ I'm looking into it...not sure why they're not there anymore

 

Being that I swapped out my Bose cd changer for an alpine, and have a blue LED-lit radar detector, I decided to swap my guage bulbs for blue LEDs. I used the plug n plays from autolumination.com. The sell them for either 4.99 or 6.99 (for the brighter ones). I started with the $6.99 ones, and they didn't fit right. By the time I was able to get them in, none of the LEDs worked. So I went and bought 4 of the regular blue LEDs, and swapped them in. The result?

They are dimmer. Except for two spots. Although after further investigation, this seems to be pretty common with the blue LEDs. I've seen pictures of red ones that were installed on a 5.5 gen that looked pretty bright and evenly spread. The only reason I keep mine is because I don't care too much about the brightness, and the color better matches my interior setup. My point is to be careful with LEDs, they may not be the answer your looking for in plug n play form. MetalMaxima's care came out real nice, but he did a lot of sanding/soldering and other custom work to get them that way.

 

Yes, that is correct. There is no real "good" plug and play resolution. You have to spend time "dinking" with stuff.

I didnt replace the bulbs in my Maxima as I have an 01 and the lighting is fine for me. I did, however, do it on my MR2. The theory is the same. I eneded up getting a multiple LED and sanding the top LED 1MM flat and then the outer LEDs at a 45 degree angle. The difference was night and day.

Without the sanding, the hot spots were very ghetto. It looked ricey. With the sanding the lighting was very even. Like I said you have to fiddle with it to get it good.

I purchased LED "boards" for the doors and dome here for my Maxima and they didnt work as advertised as well. I ended up putting some diodes on the door baords to make them work properly (IE turn off) and still getting the correct resistance on the dome light to make it work right as well. So much for a plug and play solution eh?

 

does anyone have pics??

 

Have you considered Gauge overlays instead? I was going to LED the whole gauge cluster but just decided to get some gauge overlays instead. It was a easy solution and they are certainly bright. Ohwell thats my .2 cents. heres a link..ebay Link to what I got. I did have to modify them a bit.

 

I was playing with this a while back, wanting to use some flex-LED rings but had trouble with light dispersion mainly due to the way the glass and the filter was set-up... Nissan placed strategic blocks to help the light disperse from where the bulbs are located.

Some multi-scatter LED bulbs may work, but for what i wanted to do with it, it just wouldn't.





You'll notice the "blue" filter with various printed light blockers. There are also two glass/plastic rings on each side of the cluster (you can barely see it in the photo below) that are notched in some areas, again to facilitate dispersion.


p.s. This might be a silly question, but do you have your interior lights turned all the way up? I actually have mine turned nearly all the way down since they're so bright. I played with the lights not to brighten them up, but rather to even out the hot spots.

 

check out topbright88, a seller on ebay, there are some really cool LED's on his sight, he has .5 watt, 1 watt, 150000mcd, somr have 40* dispersal, some have 120* dispersal. I'm experimenting soon with some 8mm 50000mcd's that I bought from him. I'm just going to tap into a 12v power source close by instead of soldering to the board. A lot of his LED's have presoldered resistors and 10cm wires already attatched.

Those tri-leds from autolumination are about 10000mcd for comparison.


He even has 55Lumen LED's!!! with 140* Dispersal. Almost as bright as a Luxeon star
http://stores.ebay.com/TopBright-Led...QQftidZ2QQtZkm

 

mmmmmmmmmmmmm red gauges.......


mine were plug and play but this tends to only work for autos for 5th gen as for 5.5 gen I believe I remember the only color you could do was blue and it worked for both auto and manual

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread....ght=led+gauges

 

http://www.torontomaxima.com/forum/v...p?t=50&start=0

http://usera.imagecave.com/knight_yyz2/DSC_0341.JPG

used the 8mm .5watt white leds from topbright88 ebay seller. had to set up 2 separate series due to the high draw as I could not put 4 of this type of leds on one circuit. (300mA each) Write up to follow in a few days

 

Metal Maxima's thread is still out there but doesn't have pics no more. If you where lucky to kinda remember what he did then your in luck. I tried the #24 bulb I also trimed the 194 led bulb to fit too. But like I said if you happen to remember metal maximas how-to pics. you could do something like this.



Judging from soundmike's post this wouldn't work with the 5.5 cluster unless it has the clearance to fit in between the white piece and cluster faces.

 

what do you guys think of these gauges? http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ADD-G...spagenameZWDVW

 

the needles don't light up ???

 

i didnt realize that...honestly i dont know the descrip on it doesnt say anything about the needles

 

The needles have nothing to do with the Gauge overlays. I have them installed and had posted pics of them installed so everyone could see what they actually looked like but it looks like someone took them down. Anyways if the pictures were up here like they were before you would have seen that the needles light up.

 

are the light for the warning lights(brake,ses,abs) soldered onto the board, i took mines apart today and got exact what you have in those pictures. is there anyway to replace one of them my SES is not comign on.

 

the led's I used have 140* dispersion so there are no hot spots... I'm sure those lights can be replaced, a 3mm led with a resistor should work fine