does anyone know if 1/4 watt resistors would work okay for this application? Apparently I bought the last 470 ohm 1/2 watt resistors from the local Radio Shacks :pat:

Yup they're fine
 

Yup, I'm using 1/4 watt resistors and they're fine. That's what's so great about LED's! They use so little power! I got all the 1/2 watt resistors from radio shack too so I skipped over (not literally hehe) to a local electronics parts store. The 1/4 watt ones are smaller so easier to fit in those tiny places.

Zach

Shoot, if I had known that, I would've gone w/ the 1/4 watts. They're so much smaller!

Well, I found a website earlier today that stated that it's recommended that you don't go over 60% of the rated wattage. 20 milliamps * 6 volts = 0.12 watts. That's still under 50% of a 1/4 watt so it should be all gravy :bigok: Too bad that by the time I had read that, I had already went to all the radio shacks w/in a 5 mile radius of me and bought up all the 1/2 watt ones :D :pat:

For those of you planning to do this mod, I'd recommend ordering them from somewhere, or making sure that local electronic stores have them in stock because all except two of the radio shacks around here only had (1) 5-pack in stock. The two had 3 so I bought them all :D

Well, other than the gauges, I finished the rest of my interior today. I forgot to take pictures though because I was rushing to finish before the sun went down, but I still ended up finishing about 2 or 3 hours after it had gotten dark.

Today was ashtray, finish cig lighter, and the auto's gear selector.

Ashtray, pretty straight forward.
-cut the legs off a LED, soldered two pieces of wire to act as contacts so that I could slide the LED in like the bulb.
-soldered resistor to the wire harness.
-I flattened the LED at an angle so that the light would hopefully go downward. Works well :bigok:

Cig lighter
-I described earlier how I mounted the LED. Make sure you mark the wire harness w/ a + and - because it can plug in either way!
-Soldered in resistor on the wire harness.

Auto gear selector (2wd) I don't know if the 4wd would be the same.
-Your center area should already be open
-remove two screws from the front of the shift knob. They're held in by blue loctite so be careful not to strip them.
-put your hand over the shift button, and pull the knob up about an inch. the button should jump out into your hand. You can take the button out now. There should be a greasy spring that comes out with it.
-The knob still won't come out because the O/D button's wires are holding it in so don't pull. I tried :pat: Good thing I didnt' break anything.
-four screws hold in the gear indicator. remove.
-There's a brown? wire sleeve on the right side that has to be snaked out of the little clips that hold it to the gear indicator.
*NOTE* I don't have the gear indicator that's under my tach so there might be additional wires and sensors that might get in the way if you have that.
-lift the gear indicator straight up.
-there's a bulb holder stuck to the underside of the gear indicator. 1/8th twist releases it.
-There's a blue wire sleeve that comes down the left side and is held down towards the bottom by a piece of metal. Bend that piece upwards so the wire sleeve can come out. The O/D wires are in that.
-There should be enough slack in the O/D wires to pop the O/D button out w/ a flathead screwdriver.
-I couldn't figure out a way to unplug the wires, so I just cut them just below the O/D button. Make sure you leave enough slack to solder it back together later.
-O/D button comes out, which should release the shift knob. The gear indicator should slide out now.
*NOTE* My gear indicator turned out a little darker than the rest of the lights. It's ok, but I would prefer it to be a little brighter. I Think the problem was that, if I remember correctly when I was testing polarity, the bulb there is powered by 10v instead of 12 or whatever volts. I guess you could try a different value resistor, but check the voltage there to make sure. You have to test for polarity anyway since both wires are green w/ grey squares on them. Also, I think white would look nice here, but blue works fine, and the orange indicator actually kind of glows in the blue light :bigok:
Lighting the indicator. This part can be approached in many ways. This is how I did it.
-pop the gear indicator open. 4 clips hold it closed. (this thing actually feels pretty cheezy! It's just plastic. If you have the gear indicator under the tach, there might be electronics and such)
-drill four 3/16" holes for LEDs
-flatten LEDs, install in the holes, epoxy in.
-wire everyting up.
-again, I made a thing that would plug into the bulb holder like a stock bulb. It ends up a craft (popsicle) stick fits perfectly into the bulb holder, so I cut the tip off a stick, and put the contacts on that.

-From here, it's just reassembly. Remember to watch polarity! I know I accidently reversed the polarity once or twice, but nothing blew. I'm pretty sure that the LEDs have some maximum reverse voltage rating, but it'd be a better idea not to test to see what it is, or if they have such a rating.

That's it for today! I've used 23 blue LEDs so far, so I need to wait for more to come in before I can start the gauges. I was going to do the gauges with white, and blue needles, or vice versa (if either is even possible), but the ebay dude forgot to send the white ones with the blues. I bought the LEDs from the same guy Bill did, and he has auctions for both blue and white LEDs in one auction. I got 25 of each for $18, but he has auctions up now for 50 pcs each for $23! I bid on one of those as well :D Bill, you're going to give this guys a lot of business in the next couple weeks. You should ask for a percentage! :D

*Disclaimer* I'm not responsible for anything that goes wrong with your installs :D Of course, use common sense and make sure that the directions make sense for your application. I'm not sure if Toyota changed the polarity on wires between years, or anything else that they might have changed that might cause things not to work.


I just found this site. http://www.99accord.com/DashLED/DashLEDHowTo.asp
It will help a lot with people doing this mod. He flattened the LEDs like I did cept he called it "shaving the LED".

Hey bad news but I don't see how you would make the needles a sperate color. They are illuminated by pulling the light through the clear plastic on the back of the gauges. I am thinking about changing from blue to white because with blue the needles are very dim at night. Unfortunately that will alos make the odometer a bright white too.

This may be a horrible idea, but what about making the needle red? It would be a good contrast. Its what all the new cars are doing so its easy to read. Don't want everything blending togeather... Just a thought for the needles... Otherwise good work! Keep it comming! I'm thinking about doing this but in red. My buddy did it in his volvo and its pretty bad azz.

Yep, mine too. I can barely see my needles at night with the cheapy walmart blue bulbs I'm using.

hey dudes, check this site out. you can get 194 style bulbs in LED!!!!!!! I haven't delved in far enough to see about the 74's but I'm-a-gonna look now!!!! if they work, then sorry, you are doing alot of work. haha.

http://store.autotoys.com/cgi-bin/wf...8/Catalog/1227

The Ring
 

Isn't there some myth about dying 7 days after doing this mod... :scared:

Excellent job guys :bigok: unfortunately I don't have the time or patience.

Re: The Ring
 

LoL :chairfall I just got that :pat:

Re: The Ring
 

just do what I did and get blue bulbs from walmart and use a blue sharpie on all the rest. took about an hour. :D

Actually you still need to do alot of work, the only 194 bulbs are three of them behind the instrument cluster.

yea but like I said, I hadn't checked the site for 74's. since I don't think they have them I will be searching for them, I'll post if I find some. I did find some that were alot brighter than stock in the regular bulb 74's that are blue, I may give those a shot since they're cheap and I'm lazy.

I've seen those blue 194 leds at circuit city in the car audio department. A little pricey, $10 a pair.

you didn't happen to see the 74's there in the LED variety did you? I have yet to find them. looks like if I want to do this I will have to follow suit with this thread.

I've been trying to look for them in 74 as well, but i haven't had any luck yet.

I can barely even find regular 74 size bulbs :dunno:

I get mine at pepboys. their 1.19 for two.

Hmm...i might have to scratch the whole blue lights/leds idea. Looks like alpine no longer makes the deck i wanted to get :dunno: Most of their new decks r black with green lights, it should match the stock interior. But i really like blue interior and the "OEM-stock-slightly-modified" look. ahh well

I took a picture of the spring that returns the needle to the orig position. This is the tach. The spring is like a wound up clock spring, and it's brass colored. It's below the plastic face, and above the wound coiled thing.
https://www.yotatech.com/attachment.php?postid=98020

I was planning on shoving a LED behind the faces to light the needles, but it's not possible on the speedo. The spring on this dial is buried inside all the gadgetry
https://www.yotatech.com/attachment.php?postid=98021

ok, gauges...
-Follow Bob's directions for removing the guages.
-Remove the plastic face by unclipping the 7 clips.
-7 more clips hold in the black part.
-remove 3 screws from the back of each dial, except the speedo, which has 4.
-Do your soldering thang.
-lightly sandpaper the back of each needle to remove the yellow
-on the gas and temp dials, I pointed a blue LED from the side, pointing at the needle. For the speedo, I have two blue LEDs in the center to light up the Odo and trip meter.
-Solder a LED into each turn signal, and remove the green cover over each.
-I didn't have any plastic that would work well as replacements, so I took the lighting gel that Bill used, cut out #98, Medium Grey to give me the darkness, and #101 Light Frost on top of the grey to give me the texture I needed to match the factory texture on the dials. I just glued them to the black piece with some rubber cement.
-I painted the back of the tach and speedo needles with white paint in hopes of them lighting up a little and it worked very slightly...
-Reassemble

Problems and things I wouldn't do next time:
-The needles didn't light very well :(
-I wouldn't recommend lighting w/ LEDs. The lighting is uneven (around 75-95 mph and the opposite spot on the tach) because of the plastic on the back, even with 20 LEDs :eek: AND it also took me about 8 hours...

Just go for reverse indiglo gauges... :pat:

Here's a picture of the complete job. Yeah, I know it's ugly :D
https://www.yotatech.com/attachment.php?postid=98022

All lit up.
https://www.yotatech.com/attachment.php?postid=98023

and done! FINALLY!
https://www.yotatech.com/attachment.php?postid=98024

Actually, the lighting is ok. Just make sure you use all one color. I used white and blue, but I forgot that the bottom left and bottom right of the center two dials are lit by the blue LED pointing sideways... I guess I'm going to have to open it back up one of these days and put some blue film over everything...

Holy Moly! You went all out on that cluster didn't you! After seeing that I'm kinda glad I went the indiglo route on those. I'm still debating on how to make the needles light up better, thinking about putting some red 194 bulbs back there, since I have indiglos they would just light up the needles and odometer.
Good Job!

By the way you're not done, I'm sure you'll find other spots to stick those extra LED's you have. (ie. my center console storage now has a blue ligght inside when you open it up :)).

Yeah, I was hoping to get red LEDs from somewhere, but I didn't want to spend $15 on ebay to buy 25 leds only to use like 2 of them. I think I might go the indiglo route if the procarparts thingy that Bob is setting up goes through. Right now it looks like I'm all patriotic or something because the gauges are red, white, and blue :pat:

Oh, another tip for anyone who wants to try this: use a hot glue gun. I didn't have one, so I had to either epoxy, or tape LEDs into place. That's what made it take so long.

Well, after those 8 hours, I'm done for a while :nerd: I might stick a white or blue one over the heater controls in the back. I don't think it's bright enough for the glovebox, so I left the stock bulb in there.

Guys,

After my triumphant find of the wedding ring, I decided to celebrate with a good game of Rogue Spear (yeah, I still play it) and surf the 'net.

I'm interested in building an MP3 setup w/ touchscreen, but along the way I found this thread:

http://www.sounddomain.com/member_pa...=216257&page=6

Some guy did some amazing work w/ fiberglass and installing his mp3 system in his Camry. He even did what Wild Bill and Dub did w/ the blue lights. A very detailed write up and good sources for bulbs/LEDs in his write up too.

Bob

That's a pretty cool Camry. I like what he did with his headunit. Those LEDs remind me of the ones in Nokia phones. Man, changing those lights are a big headache. That's where I got all my practice soldering from. Actually, that and soldering in modchips into playstations :D To play imported and backup copies of games, of course :redface:

edit: I forgot to tell you guys doing the conversion... I was thinking about ways to make the clock blue when I realized that the clock in my roommate's integra is the same as ours display-wise, just in blue. So, I'm going to buy an old clock off ebay and see if I can graft the display in. I'll let you know how it goes.

I finally put the A/C button label on. Well, since there were so many of you who wanted the transparency from Bill, I can mail one of you the transparency he sent me. I scanned in the A/C button and redrew it in adobe photoshop. I printed the label 10 times across the top, too. I'll send a CD with the file as well. I was going to make a bunch of pairs and send them out to whoever wanted one, but I never scanned in the Back Window switch because I ended up wet sanding the green off and it worked really well. So, I'll just send the A/C switch to someone, and then they can forward it to the next person :D Maybe if someone scans in the back window switch, they can add it to the CD.

So who wants it? :)

how big is the cd? can't you email the image to us? :dunno:

Oh, yeah, I can. The file's tiny. I was just going to include a CD with the transparency, too. If you want the image, just PM me with your email address. I'll upload it here, too, but you might need to do some resizing w/ photoshop.

width: 830 pixels -- 0.692"
height: 520 pixels -- 0.433"
resolution: 1200 dpi

*edit* the photoshop file has everything in separate layers so it takes a little more room. It's 487K uncompressed, and 247K zipped so I couldn't upload it here. You can PM me if you still want that file.

I never got the theater light gels that you suggested wild bill. I don't remember whether it's been discussed or not yet, but what about the digital odometers? Is there any way to change the color on that?

bump.....anyone?

I don't think anyone's tried yet. I have a 97 and so does Bill so we don't even have the gear indicator in the gauges. I guess you get to be the first guinea pig :D

Help in indiglo
 

WOW!
Great work everyone~!
Over time, I'm hoping to change all my LEDs to blue too..
First the gauges.

Got mine from ProcarParts

Now, did most of you guys tap into the normal headlight power in order to have them power on only when headlights are on? HOw did you know which wire to use, anyone have a picture?

Thanks!

Also,
Anyone know where to get some frosted 5mm LEds?

Seems like the guy others got them from on Ebay is now "Not a registered member"

the gauges can be run off the illumination wire from the headunit. That's where I'd tap in from.

As for the LEDs, I think that if you sand the lenses flat, it'll have the same diffusing effect.

If anyone wants frosted white LEDs, lemme know. I have about 75 of them that I never opened cause I don't need them. I'll sell them for a little under what I got them for.

As for the stupid green clock... I never bothered to open the clock until AFTER I bought an accord clock off ebay. Well, I go to dissect both clocks, and it ends up they're both a bluish white color when they're stripped naked. Same bluish white, in fact. The Yota's green and the Honda's blue come from the lenses they put over them. SO, I just trimmed the Yota's plastic lens a little, slipped in a clear piece, slapped on some smoked and blue color filters from lighting gel pack, and put it back in.

I have a 3rd party Head Unit...
What does the illum wire do? I don't think my Alpine does anything different when the headlights turn on.

Also, are you going to be posting pictures on how you did the clock mod?

Hey Dub Have you ever made any of those little LED light bulb socket things like they did on
http://www.99accord.com/HowToGuides/...LEDHowToEX.asp

Or are you basically killing each of the bulb holders to fit the LEDs in?

THanks