speedkar9

I changed my radio and HVAC bulb to white LED's. Here's a video of the procedure:


A few photos of the procedure:

First step is to remove the radio face from the stereo.



Then remove the bezel from the circuit board:



Then remove the buttons and rubber pad to expose the LED's:



The LCD is lit by an incandescent bulb, which was blown on mine. You have to remove the LCD by undoing some tabs at the back and desoldering two points at the back of the circuit board.



Remove the LCD:



Here's the bulb, which I desoldered:



I used a #74 5050SMD LED as a replacement since its 12V and comes with a resistor.



I removed it from its casing:



Then solder it to the board:





The LED's back-lighting the buttons on my 99 Solara were green 1206 SMD LED's, so I simply replaced mine with SMD 1206 white LED's from eBay.



They're very tiny so you'll need tweezers to place them. The arrow on the board is positive, which corresponds to an arrow on the LED.



All 20 LED's replaced and soldered:



The LED circuit was traced to pins 7 and 12 and the LCD was traced to pins 13 and 14 if you want to bench test with 12V.



Climate control bulb replacement requires you to unscrew the face from the unit



Then twist out the bulbs:



I used a # 74 SMD LED to replace the bulb, by removing it from its socket and installing it in the base:



Since the LED is a bit larger than the hole, I filed it down with my rotary tool to make it fit, then aim them inside the LCD to remove hotspots:




Button everything back up in the car:



Complete:





The bulb for the radio LCD isn't as bright as the one for the climate control. The SMD LED's are really bright for the radio buttons.

Hayk

iTrader: (1)

Hey guys,

I put together a video on how I repaired my backlights using only factory parts.
Over the years, the soldering method proved to be very unreliable, so I switched to Pioneer and Lexus replacement parts.