changing color of interior lighting possible?

[elykoj]

my 2005 has that amber color lighting in the cluster,radio,heating cooling knobs, etc... is there any way to change this to possibly white? what would be involved in doing this?

 

[Doozi]

Darkie3495 did a great job with this write-up... http://www.toyota-4runner.org/4th-g...ster-hvac-switches-window-steering-wheel.html

That should get you started!

~Doozi

 

[JMST4R]

I think this is a completely overlooked topic about this mod, but I just think that some people are more concerned with looks over functionality.
Toyota (and many, many more auto manufacturers) have spent literally MILLIONS of dollars researching the best, least intrusive color of dash lights to put in cars. Though the amber-ish color is far from pretty, I assure you that it causes the least amount of night vision loss out of any color on the spectrum. It seems like a lot of people like white, unfortunately, there is no worse color for your gauges to be, as it causes the most pupil pinpointing, and makes it harder to see other unlit/dimly lit things at night. It's your car; do what you want. But it seems like a mod that is time-consuming, costly, and mostly - pointless.

 

[darkie3495]

I think this is a completely overlooked topic about this mod, but I just think that some people are more concerned with looks over functionality.
Toyota (and many, many more auto manufacturers) have spent literally MILLIONS of dollars researching the best, least intrusive color of dash lights to put in cars. Though the amber-ish color is far from pretty, I assure you that it causes the least amount of night vision loss out of any color on the spectrum. It seems like a lot of people like white, unfortunately, there is no worse color for your gauges to be, as it causes the most pupil pinpointing, and makes it harder to see other unlit/dimly lit things at night. It's your car; do what you want. But it seems like a mod that is time-consuming, costly, and mostly - pointless.

Actually, the topic of eye strain and choice of colors has come up multiple times and has been discussed on various threads.

Photog over on 120 provided a very detail analysis on impact on your eyes based on light spectrum and I agree that orange/red is the least intrusive.
Thread 1: Discusses the mod directly
Thread 2: Discusses light color impact overall

However those same auto manufacturers you speak of that have spent millions of dollars researching interior lighting have chosen white for their interiors including Toyota (in the case of lexus) and Mercedes. This was the original inspiration of me to do the mod in the first place.

I've had this mod for almost 2 years and I have driven at night for long periods of time (12 hour stretches) without any noticeable eye strain or inability to identify objects at night. To be fair my interior lighting is not set to high (dimmer set to max) and i run HID's which may contribute to the easier transition from interior lighting to what is illuminated at night by my headlights.

You are welcome to your opinion on the usefulness of this mod and I'm not advocating that everyone should swap their lighting to white. However, this mod can easily be accomplished in a day or two and cost under $30.