What’s up,
Pulled off this LED upgrade to replace the lethargic combination meter CCFL lights that we’ve been complaining about for years. It’s a bit involved. Some micro soldering is required so if you attempt it it’s of course at your own risk.
Start of by removing the cluster from the dash and disassembling it.
you want to be able to access the front portion of the cluster that houses the gauges and the circuit board and in order to do that you have to remove the pin fasteners for the gauge feeds.
There is plenty of info on taking the unit apart on line so I wont bother posting them here.
However, here are some pages on the Combo Meter that I upoladed previously on CL: https://www.clublexus.com/forums/gs-...ml#post8052135

 

After removing the fasteners for the gauge pins and separating the circuit board. You have two choices; remove the CCFL light with the bracket that holds them entirely or de-solder the entire CCFL light and circuit.



I opted to de-solder the lights and keep the bracket. I didn’t want anything to start rattling around in there and I wanted them to hold the LED’s as well.

 

The LEDs I used I got from Amazon. There are hundreds of versions you can use. I’m using the 12v RGB type that changes colors with a remote and an app.
You are going to need at least 3 strips. I got 4 pack. They can be cut to size but require a bit of micro soldering.
i wanted as much LEDs as I could fit in there so I cut and soldered a few strips together to make the light pattern a even as possible.

 

Since it will not be needed anymore de-solder the power source pins from the circuit board. Less of a chance of them shorting the whole thing out.
Here I cut a small slot with a Dremmel so the LED light strip can fit better and not get crushed when I re-assemble everything back together. I also cut a slot in the old CCFL brackets to better hold the LED strip.

Here you can see were the LEDS will fit in.there is also a plastic cover that will require trimming as well. it will not be perfect but as mentioned before trimming will prevent the strip from being crushed and messing up the light pattern when you re-assemble everything back together.
there are tights spots on both sides of the speedometer because I added small gauge wiring to the LED strip to keep an even number of lights on all the gauges.

 

Top portion of the speedometer component trimmed to let more light in.
On the old set up the speedometer was always dimmer than the other gauges because it shared light rather than have its own light like the tach and fuel/coolant gauges.

 

Combination meter re-assembled.

 

Here comes the tricky part; Wiring the LEDs to the car. If you want to retain the OEM dimmer functions for the combination meter with the new LEDs you will need to wire in and connect to a SPDT micro relay with a built in diode as well as a diode for the dimmer wire from the driver kick panel (body #2) ECU. The dimmer wire that you will tap from is the light green/black wire (10.5v) that dims the clock via the drivers side photo sensor. You will also need to tap the gray clock ACC wire (12v). The relay will switch power back and forth for the LEDs when the photo sensor tells the ECU to dim the dash lights and you will keep the dimmer feature for the combo meter. The extra diode is to prevent a power surge back to the ECU (there is one on the clock circuit board). Since I tapped that wire I added one to the relay trigger/feed wire. You must connect the 10.5v light/green wire together with the positive (+) relay activation wire (86) and 10.5v dimmer power supply wire (87). When the dimmer is activated the 10.5v volt wire will cause the relay to switch the LED light power (30) from 12v (87a) to (87). the 10.5v light green/black wire from the ECU has enough volts to activate the relay. I am using a relay with a 10/20 amp capability and a diode to further protect the ECU.
If you don’t care about keeping dimmer feature then any 12v power source will do as long as it turns on with either ACC or ON in the ignition switch. However, if you want to retain dimmer function via the rheostat (dimmer ****) then connect power for the LEDs to the rheostat circuit. If you want both auto dim and rheostat hit me up and we can figure out if it’s possible since In order for the rheostat dimmer to function with the LEDs the negative and positive for the LEDs must be connected to the rheostat circuit. I didn’t bother figuring out if this is possible because the LEDs come with a Built in dimmer switch with 4 settings and if you turn down the power (which a rheostat does) too much the LEDs will flicker or reset. I recommend you run a fuse from where ever you decide to draw power from.

 

Micro Relay with relay block and diode wired in.
Relay tapped into the clock harness. I added a mini fuse with holder into the LED power feed wire.
I have a quick video of the finished product but it won’t upload on here from my phone. Check my IG for updates. HMU with questions.

Good luck.

 

Great post. Will be doing this sometime in the future.

 

Good luck.

 

Excellent work, it takes guts to rip apart a perfectly good cluster and start cutting. Won't it bug you that you can do RGB on the cluster but not the rest of the lighting? For a relay I suggest one like this the legs are tough can be bent/soldered to and not break off.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/113986432351

https://www.ebay.com/itm/392916220619

 

Nah, It wont bother me. I could have just stuck to a single color LED but I went with the RGB LEDs so I can do different shades of what ever color I have installed on the rest of the dash.
I'll pass on your relay suggestions, those are circuit board relays that have a different profile and would be MORE susceptible to breakage unless you solder them to a circuit board which is more involved than the method I used.
Also, those are Double Pole Double Throw relays, a bit of over kill for this application in which you only need one SPDT relay.
the relay I am using only cost 6 bucks, has a standard ISO profile and can be easily replaced if need be due to the relay block I installed for it.