Dash light LED conversion

[cgpEJ6]

Well I ripped apart my dash yesterday and I'm going to change the light bulbs in my climate control to LED bulbs. I found the right bulbs for the section that lights up behind the "OFF 1 2 3 4" area and the part that shows the different AC options with the little stick figure guy and arrow. I also want to change the lights on the buttons however. They are soldered into a circuit board which is going to be a pain in the ass but oh well. I am going to buy the bulbs from www.superbrightleds.com and I found the right type of bulb but I'm not sure exactly which ones I need (at least I think so.) The one's that I'm talking about are 5mm LED's (click here) but there are a bunch of different options for the same size and color bulbs such as luminous intensity, viewing angle, and wave length. I've never done anything with LED's before so I really don't know anything about them. Are there any LED experts there that know what i need or can tell by the pictures what I have now?


^^that is the circuit board and the LED's are the tiny little bulbs sticking out on the left hand side

 

[Beelzebubba]

Clean work!

I've had problems with LEDs in the instrument cluster. They disperse light differently than a regular incandesant bulb. but your set up looks good to start with.

 

[oc_civic]

Clean work!

I've had problems with LEDs in the instrument cluster. They disperse light differently than a regular incandesant bulb. but your set up looks good to start with.

ive DETAILED how to fix that a million times


in regards to the original post.. good luck with that.. i didnt f**k with that s**t.. lol

 

[cgpEJ6]

bump, anyone know anything about those LED's

 

[cgpEJ6]

well I've been looking at it more and still am not positive but I sent them an e-mail so they should be able to tell me (I hope at least.) I've stumbled upon another question however, you know the button for the rear defroster, how the hell does that come apart so you can actually get to the bulb. I popped out the piece that goes around the button obviously and was able to push in the tabs to separate the part in the back that looks like it would just pop out but the button still won't fit through the hole. If you've done this than you would know what I'm talking about, does the button pop off maybe? I don't see how else it could be on there but I don't want to break anything.

 

[BlackHopeDC5]

im searching for some pages that might help you....give me a second

 

[cgpEJ6]

thanks a lot, I've been looking all over the place for the last two days for different things all related to this with mixed success. Doing things the right way is a b***h.

 

[BlackHopeDC5]

damn im not coming up with anything...still looking...searching h-t

 

[cgpEJ6]

not being able to find stuff on this topic sucks however it's kind of exciting too because it means that there are very few people with it done.

 

[cgpEJ6]

*update* I just ordered the bulbs today. I got 2 #74 blue bulbs for the climate control and five 5mm blue led's to replace the green led's in the AC buttons and four 5mm red led's, 2 for the amber climate control buttons and then I ordered two extra just in case cuz they were cheap. I think that's what will go in the rear defroster button too but I haven't been able to get to that one yet so I'm not positive. That part is easy to get out later though if I need to go back to it. I'm just glad I got these ordered finally because it snowed last night and my climate control is sitting in my bedroom which equals no heat or defoggers for now, haha.

 

[cgpEJ6]

Well the bulbs got here today, talk about fast! I placed the order online on the 12th and received them the 15th so A++ service from Super Bright LED"s . The 74's fit perfectly and I plugged in the circuit board to see how they lit up and they look great. I'm having some trouble with the one's you solder in though. I soldered one in and it just doesn't work. I'm not sure if it's me just doing a shitty job or if I ordered the wrong bulbs. I guess I have some more research to do...

 

[oc_civic]

Well the bulbs got here today, talk about fast! I placed the order online on the 12th and received them the 15th so A++ service fromSuper Bright LED"s . The 74's fit perfectly and I plugged in the circuit board to see how they lit up and they look great. I'm having some trouble with the one's you solder in though. I soldered one in and it just doesn't work. I'm not sure if it's me just doing a shitty job or if I ordered the wrong bulbs. I guess I have some more research to do...

dont you need the correct resistor before just hard wiring in LEDs....


and yeah they are a great company...

 

[cgpEJ6]

dont you need the correct resistor before just hard wiring in LEDs....

well the light's that are in those buttons originally are actually LED's so I thought I could just do it, I've never worked with them before though so it wouldn't surprise me at all if I was wrong. I'm going to try to research it some more tonight when I have time.

 

[natedog61]

well I've been looking at it more and still am not positive but I sent them an e-mail so they should be able to tell me (I hope at least.) I've stumbled upon another question however, you know the button for the rear defroster, how the hell does that come apart so you can actually get to the bulb. I popped out the piece that goes around the button obviously and was able to push in the tabs to separate the part in the back that looks like it would just pop out but the button still won't fit through the hole. If you've done this than you would know what I'm talking about, does the button pop off maybe? I don't see how else it could be on there but I don't want to break anything.

The first thing you want to do is take off the button that has the picture of the defrost on it, it should just popl off. Then you are going to want to press in all of the release tabs. this is a pain to do but if you wedge something in 2 of them you can use your fingers for the other ones. you dont want to pull the part you want to push it through towards where the button would be. once you have slipped it out you can take the white part off by just lifting the tabs up and pulling it out. then the green panel will just pull out and the light bulbs will come with it.

 

[cgpEJ6]

^are you talking about the climate control or the rear defroster?

 

[natedog61]

^are you talking about the climate control or the rear defroster?

I have a 95 ex they might be different, but yeah the defroster

 

[Zoot187]

Well the bulbs got here today, talk about fast! I placed the order online on the 12th and received them the 15th so A++ service from Super Bright LED"s . The 74's fit perfectly and I plugged in the circuit board to see how they lit up and they look great. I'm having some trouble with the one's you solder in though. I soldered one in and it just doesn't work. I'm not sure if it's me just doing a shitty job or if I ordered the wrong bulbs. I guess I have some more research to do...

For the ones that you solder in yourself, pay attention to which wire is hot and which is ground.
LEDs are polarity sensitive. You won't damage them putting them in the wrong way, but they will only pass current in one direction. Hence the D standing for Diode.

 

[gearbox]

i'm gonna be working with leds alot making plug and play dash lights and cluster retrofits. the main things you need to know are...

luminous intensity (mcd-millicandela) how bright the leds are. the dim ones are only 1000-2000, brighter are around 10000 but they get way higher if you know who to source from.

resistors: make sure to get the proper one or the led will just burn out.

forward voltage, current. depends on the led but is needed to calculate the resistor needed.

viewing angle: the angle which you can look at the led and still see bright light. a narrow angle will have a tiny spot of light that is very bright. larger angles spread the light more. you can also sand down the tip of the led above the actual metal cup inside and that will spread the light. also some stencil film should work if there's room

 

[xenoicity]

this site oznium.com that i ordered from sells led's at a good price

 

[cgpEJ6]

my car is all put back together now, I never did get the ones I need to solder to work. I will make another attempt at it eventually but my car was just torn apart for too long.