Digital Dash Color Change

[-Strike-]

Changed a lot of the interior bulbs today to Blue LEDs, the one that turned out the best was the Climate Control unit, it looks incredible. I also put some LEDs in my Autometer Ultra Lites, they definitely glow blue, but they are a bit hard to read at night. I put some blue LEDs in the door step lights, that looks pretty sharp as well, nice ambiance when the door is open. I ended up painting the bulbs for the combination switches since the bulbs are pretty unique, and it seemed to work alright, however a couple of them went out, may have to fiddle with those a little more. Then I will be on to the dash unit itself. I'll see if I can get some photos up once the dash unit is done. I thought it would get too ricey with all the lights on the interior being blue LED, however it looks pretty sharp and seems to update the interior to a today kind of look at night. Definitely have to put some sunglasses on with the radio though, that unit is pretty bright from factory.

The climate control bulbs are small twistlocs(I'll get the part number later) They were a bit large for the hole, but I got them to fit with a bit of coaxing, and the rest of the lighting around the stock radio unit and the foot lighting use press in style Wedge base #74's. A/T shifter console and the Autometer use a 194 Style Wedge. However the Autometer as I said didn't quite turn out aswell, just hard to read the black letters on a white face gauge with Blue LED lighting, backlit like the Cobalt series would look better I'd assume.

[Orbit-Zzz]

Hey guys :-D

This is what I did to my instrument cluster. But I did this before the new wide angle LED wedge bulbs were available.
I used Red SMD LED's glued to the sides of the inner plexi bit and coulored gel films for the flourecent displays.

[DeleriousZ]

damn that looks really good. well done!

[edicer2]

damn that looks really nice man!

[nyc_86z]

dammmmm that red trim around the blue is sick :demon ....ill pay u for that...as far as the compass lights cant u just spray the light bulbs with dulpi color paint?

[Orbit-Zzz]

The compass lights are different, the text and guage areas are green/blue already. I havent worked out how I'm going to change them yet. But I did do it blue/red opposite to the main cluster. I don't like it that much and its very hard to see in the day so I want to change it to the same as the main cluster eventually.





For the main cluster you might be able to try the new wide angle LED wedge bulbs that are available. It may work, I havent tried them yet.

[nyc_86z]

dammmm that is mad sexy those colors would go great with my pod guages :twisted: you get a 10

[Orbit-Zzz]

Hey everyone :-)

As a request from nyc_86z, I've posted these pics of how I made the display on the main cluster glow red with the lights turned on. Its not a proper professional job, but it does the trick. Intead of using the SMD LED's like I have, you could try the new wide angle LED Wedge bulbs that are available. These weren't around a few years ago when I did this, thats why I did this custom setup. The LED's are glued to the plexi display. Makes it hard to pull apart again without breaking them off.

You can see the small Red LED's on the sides.


With the trim in place, you can't see the LED's

I used some wire and soldered it to the LED's pads and continued it around.

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I used the wedge LEDs for that lighting, it turned out pretty good. I have to get some photos, but I'm still waiting on the gel papers to come in so I can complete the conversion.

[Orbit-Zzz]

Cool :-D
Yes please post pics, would be good to see how it turned out. :-)

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I'll try and get some for tomorrow night. Heading to work in 5 minutes tonight, but, I have the next 4 nights off work. So, I should be able to grab some when it's dark.

[nyc_86z]

you are the man with the master plan...are you gonna do the same with the compass?

[Orbit-Zzz]

The writing on the compass is already a blue/green colour, I haven't tried to see what its like with red LED's yet...It might turn out an orange or brown colour but I'll give it a go. :-)

[-Strike-]

For some reason my camera is having one hell of a time picking up the LED lighting. I don't understand haha. It's so much brighter in person, and it hardly even showed up. I'll have to try again tomorrow and play around with the camera settings. Here's what it picked up in the photos..







The last one there, if you look at the hazard triangle thats how bright it is in person, but the camera wont pick it up. Is it just too dark maybe?

[Orbit-Zzz]

No I think that looks good, I can imagine it being brighter in person :-)
I'm gonna have to get me some of the wedge LED's for the combination switches.