They can, you just have to use SMD's. = P.I.T.A.

Just too much work.

 

Thanks for the compliment B. And actually those pics are untouched...straight off my camera just sized down. I did not alter them in any way. All I have to take pictures is my basic Sony U30 2MP at the moment so the pics aren't the best...my brother took my 6MP fuji to use on his honeymoon recently.

 

I actually used 3mm led's in the radio buttons...just had to put on my thinking cap to figure out how to do it! Can you figure it out from this pic?



I can post more later...I am off for a bbq at my buddies house!

 

Actually can you figure out how "I" did it

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/sho...&postcount=784

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/sho...&postcount=780


03-06-04 would put me past my one year anniversary when i decided i'd NEVER do this again. LOL I've been the 3mm route SMD's work much better.

 

So did you use high bright SMD's ? or what type and size of regular LED's.? 3mm, 5mm?

It would be nice if you give us all the secret to your even lighting of both the Climate LCD and the Radio LCD.

I am about to use Cold Cathodes on both but would prefer to do them with LED's especially if that is what you used.
Cause yours look excellent.


Let us in on your secret to success.

Rob
Vancouver, Canada

 

I agree with Rob. Sharing is caring, ahhahah..... How did you make it light up so bright? Anything else besides the LED was used? Thanks

 

The brightness is easy to achieve, it is the uniformity of the light that is hard to achieve.

How did you get the light so even across the LCD with no hot spots showing. SMD's ?

Did you use some kind of diffusion between the light source and the back of the LCD ?If so what did you use ?

Rob

 

This is how I did my climate control unit. Please people.... just send it into Brian if you are not experienced working with small electronics.

Ok the display was fairly easy to get done. I used two 3mm led's in each of the 3 light locations. I set it up so that all the light seen on the display is all reflected off the back plastic buckets. If you have taken the climate unit apart you will know what I mean by looking at this picture of how the led's are set up.



Of coarse the led's will not fit through the stock bulb holes like that...so instead of grinding plastic off of the unit I actually dropped the led's through with the plastic bucket in place and soldered them in...then put the lcd back in position.
The only other thing I did was remove the stock light difuser. If you look at it....it is designed to lessen the light directly above where the stock bulbs are, but since we are now shining the light to the sides, you want as much light to get to the middles of the 3 buckets as possible.

As for the button lighting, its pretty straight forward if you know what you are doing. I am going to redo mine with more resistance, or frosted led's with less light output as my buttons are a tad too bright right now. Here is a pic of the led's for the buttons...

 

This looks like a great thread if the pix links could be re-established. Need the help...

 

I second that. Can you re-host your pictures or upload them through CL.... because I can't see anything.

EDIT: lol just realized how old this thread is....

 

3 years later lol