Turned out to be super simple to do the full bright/dimmer mode circuit. Tested the current draw of the LED strip 50 milliamps that's excellent for so much light. Swap the 47Ω resistor for some other value to change the dim mode brightness. May be necessary to also add a resistor for full bright mode won't know for sure until I test the cluster in the car.

Here's the circuit

 

Huh, just realized that 2004 Sienna had this color cluster, a lot better than straight blue, but I am not quite sold on it..

Basically negligible, and quite impressive, yeah, there is no point bothering with PWM.

 

You have to see the ice blue in person it looks so clean.
I made a row using 5050 LEDs to illuminate the redline part of the tach these draw more power than the LED strip. In dimmed mode the strip uses 15 milliamps. Amazing.

 

Well, you will have to share the picture of the final result.

Was the redline illuminated in the previous picture? Better hope it wasn't, I could barely see it glow..

 

Camera doesn't pick it up well but I'll try.
No that pic doesn't have the red LEDs. Of course with the white backlight that is not an issue.

 

Final result





Made a proper header for the programmer

 

Finally done, cluster is installed. This is a donor cluster didn't want to modify my pristine original, of course when I put it the car in gear the D indicator was burnt out. Should have checked that. Resistance values for the LED strip are 150Ω for the high mode and 150Ω for dimmed mode. So when park lights are on the strip is going through 300 ohms of drop down. The strip gets a fair bit brighter at 14 volts (car running) versus on my test bench which is a 12 volt power supply.

Now the bad news, the LED strip flickers. It's very subtle but there, I thought about putting in a capacitor but that is a band-aid I'd love to get rid of this flicker problem completely.

Happy how this turned out camera does not do it justice

 

Installed these aftermarket headlights equipped with

these bulbs

these bulbs

They are replacing my stock HID units. Headlight came with H7 halogen bulbs it has some sort of adapter


Because of this the bulb hold down doesn't work with the LED bulb so I used some Toyota vacuum line. A rubber washer would be better


Headlights did come with rubber boots, I cut them to fit around the LED bulb. Cooling is certainly suspect we'll see how they hold up there is a vent so cool air will get sucked into the fan.

This bulb

This bulb

had excellent cooling and might be a good solution but I've tried the 9004 version and the beam pattern was no good it blinded other drivers. H7 could be fine don't know


This is the connector that goes to the original HID ballast, I don't have a companion to fit into it anyone know what connector will work? I'm using an H7 pigtail soldered the ends and flattened them out to make a sort of spade connector. It works but need a permanent solution


For high beam using the original pigtail/connectors would like a more elegant solution


Here are the factory connectors brown is high beam


So what do I think of these headlights? They look nice and the quality seems good except the corner light fitment could be better had to fight with them a bit. But they line up well enough. Will have to wait until dark before I know how they perform with the LED bulbs

 

How much did you end up paying for the headlight housings?

 

$146.35. If you want them I suggest saving them to your watch list or adding to cart that might trigger them sending you an offer.

Toyota vacuum line is 7mm but it crushed down a bit so maybe a 5mm thick rubber washer is good?

 

Went for a night drive afraid my rating is marginal. There is no glare, good cut off line but there are two distinct hot spots. Not terrible not great. They were aimed way too high took them down 7 screwdriver twists. I can't access the LH adjustment screw for left/right which is a bummer, intake tube is in the way. Guess I could remove it but a fair bit of work. No complaints on brightness a nice improvement over the factory HIDs.

Here's the rub, putting LEDs in a reflector housing is a bit of trial and error it's possible a different bulb would produce a more even beam pattern. But it's just that, trial and error. I could put the halogen bulbs in but that defeats the purpose of what I'm trying to do. Maybe I can improve the pattern enough by tweaking left/right on both headlights, we'll see.

In summary if you have halogen headlights then this combo will be a drastic improvement much safer. On a dark road the beam pattern looks better the hot spots are not as noticeable. So in that way it would be worth it especially if your headlights are fogged up/yellowed. Can't give a perfect recommendation, but they are not bad and in fact better than some new cars I've seen.

 

This is a good YouTube channel that does LED headlight bulb reviews and talks about which bulbs work best in reflector vs projector.

 

Headlights are one of the most controversial topics for me as it always seems to create more troubles than it solves, just about any aftermarket option I've seen was bad in its own special way. Nowadays driving at night is becoming almost unbearable with third of a traffic having the headlights mounted higher than my windshield, and the other third looking for ways to improve their viewing without bothering to see how it affects people on the other end. Right now I'm just hoping that you know what you are doing..

Considering the flat alignment notch on a portion of a circle, a better option may be something more solid, like a plastic spacer with a piece cut out to go around the notch. Good quality spacers are usually pretty flat, helping with the bulb alignment, and they don't develop a memory, which will reduce the pressure of the tiedown clip over time, not to mention that a proper spacer would look considerably better.

Here is a thread on how to de-pin a connector, which also lists Part Numbers for pretty much all Toyota connectors out there. There are two options - first is to replace both Connector Housings for a matching set that can be found at the junkyard, the other option is to purchase a New Housing from Toyota. Usually if there is a matching opposite housing available, its Part Number will be very similar to the other end, this is no exception, Part Number for your existing housing is 90980-11254, and while it's easy to find, it can be tricky to locate..



Not exactly sure I see a problem with the existing setup..

Well if you ever decide to sell those I will be your first customer..

Hope this helps and best of luck!

 

LED bulbs working properly in a halogen housing is not some unobtainable thing in fact I've done it many times. 98% of the people that say it can never work have never tried it but insist you will blind every driver and cause people to crash. If you want to talk about blinding other drivers Honda/Acura is especially bad, also some Audi's are terrible for glare. Modern automotive lighting in general is a total disaster but that's a topic for another thread.
I used what I had available.

For doing an adapter harness I'll probably find what I need at a salvage yard, I really don't want to cut the original harness.
Probably not going to happen but if so I'll give you first choice.

 

Then I sincerely hope I am wrong..

I understand, just the idea for the future..

The idea is to replace the housing alone, without having to cut any wires. Terminals in most Toyota connectors are identical, unless it's a specialized connector like newer Instrument Clusters or Clock Springs. You can take the existing Connector Housing off, leaving just the Terminals crimped onto the wiring, then find a matching pair at the junkyard and install a new housing onto old terminals, without the need of cutting any wires. Done that a number of times when no matching connector was available, though mostly on the interior wiring, similar to the Fog Light mod I did some time back, here is a link.

Below is a picture of a connector taken apart, it's an interior connector, the first matching pair I was able to find lying around to illustrate the idea, it's the same procedure for a waterproof connector, with the only difference being the rubber seals.



Thanks a lot!

Hope this helps and best of luck!