DIY: LED gauge cluster
06-15-09, 05:47 AM
#31
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Cool DIY.
An Idea!? Mainly for Schwarz or whoever has done this mod.
My cluster has been done with blue before, however like your pictures show the redline red lines are damn near invisible with the blue backlight.
So the question is since you have been in the back of the cluster, Can you put one white led behind the "redline" area to lighten it up a bit, without washing into other areas??
Any insight would be helpful.
An Idea!? Mainly for Schwarz or whoever has done this mod.
My cluster has been done with blue before, however like your pictures show the redline red lines are damn near invisible with the blue backlight.
So the question is since you have been in the back of the cluster, Can you put one white led behind the "redline" area to lighten it up a bit, without washing into other areas??
Any insight would be helpful.
06-15-09, 09:38 AM
#33
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The climate DIY will be done in a few weeks.
The OEM bulbs are incandescents and the LED's I used don't produce a single focused beam, but a wide light area to prevent any chances of 'hot spots'. The regular round head LED's will of course produce little spots of light which is not the look we are after.
The redline can't be isolated from the 7 and 8 on the tach so if you were to put in a single white LED there, it would bleed into those numbers.
The dimmer works somewhat. They fade down slowly and then at about 1/2 intensity, just go off. It's part of the nature of LED's to not fade.
Cool DIY.
An Idea!? Mainly for Schwarz or whoever has done this mod.
My cluster has been done with blue before, however like your pictures show the redline red lines are damn near invisible with the blue backlight.
So the question is since you have been in the back of the cluster, Can you put one white led behind the "redline" area to lighten it up a bit, without washing into other areas??
Any insight would be helpful.
An Idea!? Mainly for Schwarz or whoever has done this mod.
My cluster has been done with blue before, however like your pictures show the redline red lines are damn near invisible with the blue backlight.
So the question is since you have been in the back of the cluster, Can you put one white led behind the "redline" area to lighten it up a bit, without washing into other areas??
Any insight would be helpful.
The dimmer works somewhat. They fade down slowly and then at about 1/2 intensity, just go off. It's part of the nature of LED's to not fade.
06-15-09, 09:58 AM
#34
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Last edited by DaveGS4; 06-15-09 at 10:14 AM.
06-15-09, 02:26 PM
#35
Man, I have never seen an OP harassed so much for such a good write-up. I will be attempting this myself.
oh and by the way, if you guys want to test out stuff with some cheap led's before using the good stuff from online, I know this sounds rice, but I noticed the some of the lights for my Christmas tree are all 5mm led's, and they are super bright. when I wired one up with a resistor it worked perfectly and was super bright on a 9v source. There are like 50 on a string of lights and they cost next to nothing. once you pull them out of the wedge type base, they look exactly like the ones in those pics...
oh and by the way, if you guys want to test out stuff with some cheap led's before using the good stuff from online, I know this sounds rice, but I noticed the some of the lights for my Christmas tree are all 5mm led's, and they are super bright. when I wired one up with a resistor it worked perfectly and was super bright on a 9v source. There are like 50 on a string of lights and they cost next to nothing. once you pull them out of the wedge type base, they look exactly like the ones in those pics...
06-15-09, 02:28 PM
#36
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That sucks, anyway to put a plastic divider in there?
I guess I will try it out when I get a spare cluster, my tach motor is toast, still get a signal, using it for an external tach.
06-15-09, 02:40 PM
#37
Oh yeah, i forgot in my previous post. you may not have to wire a resistor to each LED individually. If you know you want to use 3 LED's you can wire up 1 higher watt resistor in series or parallel depending on the source voltage and the amps etc..
using an LED calculator http://led.linear1.org/led.wiz
it says for 13v supply, 2v forward voltage, 20ma forward current, and 3 LED's,
all you need is one 1/2w 390 ohm resistor in series with the 3 led's.
the obvious drawback is in a series orientation, when one LED fails, all 3 will fail.
in your current setup, they would fail individually. just throwing out some options.
I think maybe your numbers are a bit off, because with the calculator, using 1 LED and a 14V source like you have, i get 680ohms. they way you have it wired up you need to put 1 LED in the calculator and not 3 because each individual set is seeing 14v in parallel.
you may possibly burn your led's out prematurely.
using an LED calculator http://led.linear1.org/led.wiz
it says for 13v supply, 2v forward voltage, 20ma forward current, and 3 LED's,
all you need is one 1/2w 390 ohm resistor in series with the 3 led's.
the obvious drawback is in a series orientation, when one LED fails, all 3 will fail.
in your current setup, they would fail individually. just throwing out some options.
I think maybe your numbers are a bit off, because with the calculator, using 1 LED and a 14V source like you have, i get 680ohms. they way you have it wired up you need to put 1 LED in the calculator and not 3 because each individual set is seeing 14v in parallel.
you may possibly burn your led's out prematurely.
Last edited by Ali SC3; 06-15-09 at 02:45 PM.
06-15-09, 03:36 PM
#38
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I think maybe your numbers are a bit off, because with the calculator, using 1 LED and a 14V source like you have, i get 680ohms. they way you have it wired up you need to put 1 LED in the calculator and not 3 because each individual set is seeing 14v in parallel.
you may possibly burn your led's out prematurely.
you may possibly burn your led's out prematurely.
06-17-09, 01:51 AM
#41
nice work, should of done this myself and saved some money and headache from it being sent out.... gj
ryeno... if you dont like it no one is forcing you to do it.... we're all big boys and girls here. i'm sure most of us can wipe our own *** and make a decision..
ryeno... if you dont like it no one is forcing you to do it.... we're all big boys and girls here. i'm sure most of us can wipe our own *** and make a decision..
