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Gauge color mod!!

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#141 ·
Well technically I'm an hour and a half early.. I'm in Central time... But ok, FU anyway I'm gonna go get some beer. :nana:
 
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#142 ·
yes but everybody else in this conversation is in eastern time:D So ya, half hour:nana:
 
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#144 ·
I got my Super Bright LEDs yesterday and installed them into my gauge cluster. I chose to try colored LEDs because I love deep, intense, colored lights (especially blue). I figured if I was unhappy with the overall brightness I'd go for white. To avoid the darkened red areas I decided to mix red and blue LEDs on the main panel: the two in the lower corners are red and the other three are blue. I used green LEDs in the turn signals and a blue for the high beam. Here's what I've found so far:


1) Do not take me to Vegas. I had a 50/50 shot on each bulb to insert it properly and out of 8 total bulbs I got 2 right on the first shot.

2) My high-beam bulb casts a pale glow even when I don't turn it on. It's bright enough that I'm afraid I'll have to put the old incandescent back in. Anyone else seeing this? The cargo bulbs on my 3rd brakelight do this too.

3) In my daytime test I found that my red and blue areas do seem to glow, and that my needles seem to glow too, although not as bright.
 
#145 ·
I'm looking forward to the night pics of this to see how it turned out. As for the high beam, I think it's a result of current leakage through the filaments. In a regular bulb it's not enough to make an incandescent glow, but apparently it's enough to make the LED glow.. I left mine incandescent, so I don't have the problem. ;)
 
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#146 ·
I would like to see this too, but Im impressed with the blue color it gives off, drove my truck today and with the windows as dark as they are, the guages lit up so nice :D
 
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#147 ·
I'm going to have to figure out a way to take a nice nighttime shot. I'm thinking tripod. I'm taking her out tonight to try out the new lights in the dark, and I have drama to test out with my new headunit that may or may not have a properly functioning USB port.
 
#148 ·
Anyone got any ideas for a puffy foamy collar thingie to put on that stick that reset the trip meter? Mine crumbled into nothing and now I get a lot of light leakage around that stick. I think I'm gonna have to go to an artsy-craftsy type place and look for something. I needs to be like one of those insulation collars for pipes except much, much smaller. Maybe even a square piece of foam with a tiny hole would work.
 
#149 ·
use that foam tape from home depot and cut it to fit and sticl in place. Ive used that many times...works wonder
 
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#150 · (Edited)
Big_Texxan said:
use that foam tape from home depot and cut it to fit and sticl in place. Ive used that many times...works wonder
Click to expand...
Yeah what he said.. just make sure you clean off every bit of the old stuff and prep the plastic with alcohol. The adhesive on that stuff isn't very good so the surface needs to be pristine.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy SII using Firefox Mobile because the PIECE OF SHIT AUTOGUIDE APP IS STILL FUCKING BROKEN!!!
 
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#151 ·
TazRango said:
Yeah what he said.. just make sure you clean off every bit of the old stuff and prep the plastic with alcohol. The adhesive on that stuff isn't very good so the surface needs to be pristine.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy SII using Firefox Mobile because the PIECE OF SHIT AUTOGUIDE APP IS STILL FUCKING BROKEN!!!
Click to expand...
what he said haha
 
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#152 ·
Before LEDification of the gauge cluster:
Booh to greenish-blue gauges!
Image


After with LEDs:
As you can see, the high beam light "icon" is clearly visible since that light is always on.
Image


After: With the highbeam light and turn signal light going
Image


Yes I used a tripod for the after shots and they still look blurry, and the clear before photo was done by holding the camera against the steering wheel. So much for planning things out! I needed to use the timer but my camera's menu for stuff like that is simplified by making those kinds of tasks difficult to do. :)

Overall I'm happy. I have the red bulbs in the corner so the blue regions on the tach and speedo dial turn a little purple in the corners, but that's OK. The main blue and red sections glow well and that's the most important part. The needles glow too, but what color they actually glow is up for debate! I notice that the darker I turn the dimmer dial the more impact the red bulbs have. I think I'm going to learn to live with the always-on highbeam LED because I'd rather just get as many old fashioned incandescents out of that dashboard as possible. The bulbs put out heat to the elections and they are nearly 10 years old.
 
#153 ·
Wow man, I gotta say that looks REALLY good! I'm diggin the red underglow that the needle bases have.. Is that as visible in real life or is it just exaggerated from the long exposure?
 
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#154 ·
ooooooooooooooooooo that is soooo nice me want now me want!!!
 
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#157 ·
TopGearMopar said:
What color bulbs did you use?
Click to expand...
The turn signals are green LEDs, and I think I picked a blue LED for that middle one.

As for the rest, there are a total of 5 other bulbs on the panel: two along the left, one in the middle, and two along the right. The ones on the end are kinda offset from the pair of little gauges on each end. I put blue LEDs in the middle and upper spots on the end, and in the lower corner lights are red.

By using true blue & red LEDs I didn't have to worry about the opaque sections of gauges being black since they were either red or blue (aside from the green turn signal spots which were given their own dedicated green LEDs). My main concern was that the light wouldn't reach all of their intended areas well and I'd have bright and dim spots, but the lighting is very even. The only real sign of the mixed bulbs is that the big tach & speedo scales look a bit purple in the corners, but that's fine.

I also have a solution to my leakage around the trip meter stick. I'm going to use small pieces of extra closed-cell foam I have lying around from my sound dampening project. It's got a sticky backside so I'm going to piece two together back-to-back and use a belt hole maker to pop in a hole. I keep forgetting to do it so I'm going to do it now.
 
#158 ·
My gauges are great. My HVAC? Not so much.
The HVAC has 3 bulbs so I intended to do something similar as on the gauges. I was going to make the two end bulbs blue and the middle bulb red. I had to order the red bulb today (forgot to get it last time) and this is what I ended up with:


Here's what I've got:
Image



Sucks.

There's no dispersion at all with these little blue LEDs, and the second bulb just didn't work at all. That means that two of the things I got from my last order from Super Bright LEDs just didn't work. The first was a base for a gauge cluster that didn't work, and now this bulb (or just its base).

Even if it did work and even if I had the middle red bulb there'd still be poor dispersion. I don't know how the light is piped around in here either.

Ugh this is so disappointing! Here I thought this would be the easy one and the gauge cluster would be the one creating headaches!
 
#159 ·
damn dood, sorry to hear that
 
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Dango14
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