yosh2000's ultimate LED swap info thread

[S p a r k y]

[MENTION=135207]DreamRun08[/MENTION]
What kind of tips are you looking for? Needle tips? Led tips? So many things to suggest!

 

[DreamRun08]

It's Done. Thanks to all of you for your help. i couldn't have done it without you. I'm stoked it came out great, and i learned how to solder too!

 

[DreamRun08]

as you can see i do have a little more swapping to do. orange arrows on HVAC will be swapped to blue, air bag, 4wd, steering controls, cup holders, shifter, door window, and maybe i'll even do the radio.

 

[S p a r k y]

[MENTION=135207]DreamRun08[/MENTION] any reason you didn't do the odometer?

 

[DreamRun08]

[MENTION=135207]DreamRun08[/MENTION] any reason you didn't do the odometer?

well i know there are problems with getting the right voltage NEO LED's for the HVAC display so;
i figured i'd rather have it orange and bright than any other color and dim. i know theres other ways around it, like taking the 12v from the cigaret lighter, but then what about being able to dim it. so i thought what the hell, i'll just leave it stock.
I wanted both the screens to match so i left the ODO orange too. also i don't know if its just the pictures, but with the white LED's the HVAC screen tends to look a little greyish-green and i don't like that.
overall i think it still looks good and i kinda like the contrast.

 

[S p a r k y]

well i know there are problems with getting the right voltage NEO LED's for the HVAC display so;
i figured i'd rather have it orange and bright than any other color and dim. i know theres other ways around it, like taking the 12v from the cigaret lighter, but then what about being able to dim it. so i thought what the hell, i'll just leave it stock.
I wanted both the screens to match so i left the ODO orange too. also i don't know if its just the pictures, but with the white LED's the HVAC screen tends to look a little greyish-green and i don't like that.
overall i think it still looks good and i kinda like the contrast.

Agree completely that white looks terrible in hvac, blue looks prett good though, not as bad hot spots as the pic, still looks good how you have it!

 

[DreamRun08]

Agree completely that white looks terrible in hvac, blue looks prett good though, not as bad hot spots as the pic, still looks good how you have it!

Oh! nice, that looks good! were you able to find LED's that work properly in it or did you rewire? maybe ill change mine in the future.

Also how'd you get the light to spread so evenly on all your controls?

 

[S p a r k y]

Oh! nice, that looks good! were you able to find LED's that work properly in it or did you rewire? maybe ill change mine in the future.

Also how'd you get the light to spread so evenly on all your controls?

Neo Wedge Takes 2 weeks or so for these to come in, but they work and very cheap.

To get good light spread, just sand the acrylic at top of the led down. I typically sand it down half of the actual dome acrylic.

 

[Todapwr]

Finished my full LED conversion this weekend. Got the final piece in which was the new head unit.

Make sure you clean and polish the plastic cover while its off. I don't know why but all the ones I've seen are pretty scratched up.

before

after

 

[DreamRun08]

for the arrows on the HVAC controls does it matter witch direction i install them?

 

[yosh2000]

Yes, all LEDs have polarity that must be followed.

 

[DreamRun08]

Yes, all LEDs have polarity that must be followed.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

so how can you tell which way it goes?

 

[yosh2000]

so how can you tell which way it goes?

1) by looking at the old ones (and take a pic for reference)
2) by the markings on the PC board

 

[DreamRun08]

1) by looking at the old ones (and take a pic for reference)
2) by the markings on the PC board

so i see that there is a flat side to the LED's. the problem is the new LED's flat side is not in the same place as the old one's. the old LED's flat spot is in between the legs which will line up with the markings and holes. the new LED's flat spot is on the outside of the legs, so the holes won't match up. so the question is; which side of the marking do i face the flat spot? I guess i'll have to figure it out myself. (if i can find out how to get the old ones out.)

 

[DreamRun08]

did anyone have a problem getting the HVAC LCD screen off i couldn't pull it out to get to the airbag, seatbelt, and security LEDs.does it come out or is it soldered in there?
thanks in advance for any reply's i'm getting closer one step at a time to finally finishing this

 

[Bluesky 07]

Certain lights, for example the headlight and fog light on indicators, do not dim with the rest of the panel. Is there a way to convert them to dimmable?

I live in a rural area and at night, I dim the panel and turn off my radio’s touch screen to help with night visibility. But those few lights on the dashboard become an annoyance when everything else is dim. If that change could be made while swapping out the orange lights for another color, that might be my tipping point to do this mod.

 

[LordAbdullah]

Certain lights, for example the headlight and fog light on indicators, do not dim with the rest of the panel. Is there a way to convert them to dimmable?

I live in a rural area and at night, I dim the panel and turn off my radio’s touch screen to help with night visibility. But those few lights on the dashboard become an annoyance when everything else is dim. If that change could be made while swapping out the orange lights for another color, that might be my tipping point to do this mod.

I would just remove the bulbs, a lot of times it's pretty obvious when headlights/fog lights are on so that's one way. I don't think those indicators can be dimmable though, not without serious modification to the circuits.

 

[toyo]

For a mere $20.00 you can replace the cluster lens. After I did my LED swap there was no way I was gonna put a scratched lens back on.

Part# 83852-35E50

 

[Legender]

Or, for even cheaper, use some aluminum polish or Meguiars Plastic restorer and get it good as new. Little effort, but works great. Did this on my Miata cluster and turned out nice and smooth with no scratches.

 

[toyo]

Very true. However, I’ve seen some that look like they are cleaned with a wire brush.