Alright so i @!#$ up big time. I Took out the cluster out of my 04 cav and i broke off a led light (well i believe thats what it was. unless the lights in the cluster arnt leds). So now i dont know if my high beams are on or off (haha. i know no big deal) but i would like to replace all the cluster lights to blue led lights and have them turn on with my headlights. i dont know anything about led lights (like what size led to get 3mm or 5mm) or how to solder them. if anyone can please help me out with this or point me out to another forum that has step by step on how to do this that would be great.
i'm planning on doing exactly what ur talkin about with an older cluster (or spare)..for the mean time what i did was wired some up and shoved about 8 back there and got this result--as soon as i finish solderin the LEDs directly into the 'motherboard' then i'll show...BTW--the pix dont do justice
hope that helps a lil bit...
Ozzie did u remove the stock cluster lights b4 "shoving" hte leds back there??
i have a spare cluster also and im lookin for ideas to try to make it look better, so far i've painted my needles yellow and im workin on painting the trim also
well mines the 04 so i didnt dare touch the needles...
what i did was remove the dash of course..
took off the actual cluster...
removed the black plate around the back exposing the green 'mother board'
then shoved the 4 thru the bottom...and 4 thru the top
replaced the cover and thats it
i'm tryin on the spare...i have 2 sets of leds ready to wire 3mm and 5mm...see which one works out...then i'll post up
I had a spare panel laying around and tried to replace the leds on the board.
I unsoldered the gauges from the back (this gets around the needle problem)
Then I unsoldered the leds from the board and replaced them with blue ones from radioshack making sure that the polarity was correct.
Then I out every thing back together very carefully and resoldered all my connections.
This did not take long, about two hours
Got it to the car and the mother f-er didn't work. I was pissed.
I was so pissed I took the cluster and threw it up against the wall and it flew into peices. Oh well.
LOL, well that was a two hours well worth it, LOL
so ozzie,
the stock lighting is still in there and working and u just shoved leds in there and it lights up that good???
nice, i may try that
mdk wrote:so ozzie,
the stock lighting is still in there and working and u just shoved leds in there and it lights up that good???
nice, i may try that
werd...that way you can still utilize the reg. lights back there...my dad has a tendancy of takin my car and gets P/O from all the switches i have (hater...
)--this way you can have the LEDs at teh flip of the switch or just use stock lights...
he's gonna have to get used to it as soon as i get that 2nd cluster workin
lol nice
my dad loves my car, he gets pissed when i spend money on it, but i can tell from the way he looks at it, he wants it, so i did some work to his alero for him
made him happy for now
haha, my dad is the same way
all i did was completely disasemble the cluster, and on the rear of the "face" is a clear plastic skeloton that everything is put on..... i masked the gauge face, and painted it blue w/ that translucent "stain" paint "blue of course"
and it look absoloutely awsome
i got a sig warning
boosted cavfire
Ozzie wrote:...for the mean time what i did was wired some up and shoved about 8 back there and got this result--as soon as i finish solderin the LEDs directly into the 'motherboard' then i'll show...BTW--the pix dont do justice
That looks good the only problem that i have seen is that the leds dont light up everything even like in the pic it looks like the 80mph lights up more than the rest of the cluster. Is there a way to place the leds so that the cluster looks like it lights up even? In the cluster there are 3-4 leds i think. do i just replace those leds or do i need to add more leds around the cluster. all i want is even lighting.
inbredzed (mr. steve) wrote:haha, my dad is the same way
all i did was completely disasemble the cluster, and on the rear of the "face" is a clear plastic skeloton that everything is put on..... i masked the gauge face, and painted it blue w/ that translucent "stain" paint "blue of course"
and it look absoloutely awsome
Damn thats a bad ass idea. i painted the HVAC leds blue with some stain glass paint but i didnt like the way it came out. it looked green. Do you happen to have pictures and if so can u post them up.
u can cut or sand the end of the led before u get to the diode so that the light will flood instead of it just lighting up one specific spot.
black vice wrote:u can cut or sand the end of the led before u get to the diode so that the light will flood instead of it just lighting up one specific spot.
ok i have no idea what you are talking about. well i kinda have an idea. do you mean like grind it down flat from the top?
YES....exactly...but only shave it down as close as u can to the metal things(i forget what they are called) that way they shine brighter...be careful not to shave to close...remove the round shape and give it a 'flat top' so to speak
I think...totally not sure.... that the cluster lights are actually tiny incandescent bulbs, not led's. if that is the case than if you unsolder them and put led's in you have to put a current limiting resistor in with them. maybe like a 200 ohm. most incandescent bulbs have a resistance of about 247 ohms, a led on the other hand has like 2 ohms. if you don't have the resistor in there you will fry the led because the total amperage is dropped across the 2 ohms instead of the 247 that was once there. i speak from experience....tried to make an EGT gauge, took a few leds before i figured that out.
thanks for the advice
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^^^^^^^^^KNIGHT RIDER CAVALIER^^^^^^^^^
@!#$EN REALLY LOW ON CASH RIGHT NOW
