Finally got some good picts of my interior blue lights

[dynatos]

yeah, i've seen those 6000, 7000, 8000, 9000 mcd blue leds off of ebay and others.. funny how they are just as bright as the 3000mcd's i have.

but i'm just a sceptic, so let me know if they don't give you any dark/light spots.

 

[a_scobel]

Ok guys I know you want this thread dead but I want to show those of you who didn't believe me about just replacing the LED's with the 74 LED that is now sold. It will save you at least 3 hours and it's a lot easier to do. Here is the finished product:

Just a little warning to anybody who gets the 74 LED, it is longer than the normal bulb, therefore it will not screw in. I had to glue mine in to make it stay

 

[4G63 GST]

which 194 bulb is the best to use for the gauge cluster ... the opaque focused or the clear focused lens' ? .. im guessing the opaque one ..


what did you guys use that you liked for your gauge cluster?




Luke

 

[chorpie]

Hey guys,

I know that now you can buy bulbs for this, but I saw SexyDSM's post AFTER I bought the LED's already. SO, since I didn't want to hot glue everything into my car, I decided to reuse the stock bulb mount. I am assuming that the bulb mounts are the same everywhere in the car, so we will see when i get to the rest of them. I only did the ash tray light so far. But, reusing the light mount makes it so you don't have to hot glue LED's everywhere. If the rest of the bulbs are the same, i'll post what i did later on.

Thanks,

Yong

 

[SexyDSM95]

Just a little warning to anybody who gets the 74 LED, it is longer than the normal bulb, therefore it will not screw in. I had to glue mine in to make it stay

I didn't use hot glue, super glue, any type of glue.....

 

[a_scobel]

Oh yeah...the AC button really isn't that hard to put back together..as long as you don't lose the little metal hook thing on the bottom of it. It's about as big as a staple, so it's really easy to lose.....on that note, anybody have an extra AC button laying around they can sell me??

 

[a_scobel]

One more little piece of info... Here's a seller on Ebay who has GOOD ass deals on LEDs, for anybody who cares. He hooked me up with 50 blue LEDs (7000 MCD) AND resistors for about 12 bucks shipped. http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQgotopag...dsperpageZ25QQsosortorderZ1QQsosortpropertyZ1

 

[4G63 GST]

No one answered my question ..





BRING IT BACK B*TCHES!



Luke

 

[Chuckt]

No one answered my question ..





BRING IT BACK B*TCHES!



Luke

the info is all in the first few pages. if you cant scan through them to find the info you need then you have problems. some more obvious to some than others.

 

[Jaybone]

LONG LIVE MY THREAD!!!!!!!

 

[skreetracer87]

hey i fopund some blacklight leds on ebay. do they work light real blacklights and they say on 50mcd? can that be right cause most leds are several thousand mcds. maybe its cause its ultra violet. i dont know but any help would be appreciated.

 

[Boxer269]

which 194 bulb is the best to use for the gauge cluster ... the opaque focused or the clear focused lens' ? .. im guessing the opaque one ..


what did you guys use that you liked for your gauge cluster?




Luke

Well I hot glued in 7 blue 3000mcd leds in all the spots that lit up the cluster itself not the warning lights, and to tell you the truth im pissed because they brightness sucks so much butt that you cant even tell your mph at night cause your eyes are allready all screwed up from the other ppls headlights on the road. so what ever you do i wouldnt just use 7 leds. you may have to drill and add more, personally im going to put some leds on the outside of the gauges coming from the top maby the black light ones with black light reactive needles or something but mine are really dim and im pi$ed and i even shaved the leds down to make them spread but they still suck and i need some guidence...

 

[BurgundyTalon]

I used some PIAA blue LED's in my Camaros HVAC and transmission selector. Those were pretty bright. If you switch to a 4-6 led bulb it might help as the single led and sometimes even the 2 led setups in the 194's arent that bright. On ebay they have multi directional 4-6 led 194 bulbs which should be a lot better! I had tried some cheap 1 led 194 style bulbs and it wasnt enough. But the PIAA's had 2 and worked really well. though it doesnt matter at day you couldnt see them. Night they were just as bright.
Hoping to do this with my new dsm powered car.

 

[psychlow]

I just found this thread. I noticed a lot of you guys have been guessing on what value of resistor to use so you don't burn out the LEDs. There's a simpler way to figure it out if you do a little math and you have a multimeter.

I'm assuming the circuit is 14.4V (with the alternator running) which is what most cars run - if not, change the value of 14.4 in the following equation (I haven't tested doing it myself just yet - measure with a multimeter).

Equation:

R = (B * L/V) - L

Where:
B is the EMF (in volts) across the two leads in the car you're starting with
R is the resistance (in Ohms) of your resistor.
L is the resistance (in Ohms) of your LED.
V is the required EMF (in volts) of your LED.
EMF = electromagnetic force (voltage).

Example: I found some red LED's with a 3000mcd rating that I'll probably use from the Shack that run 1.7-2.4V max. They are listed at 20mA max current, so I figure they are about 85 Ohms, but I'd check the resistance of the LEDs with a multimeter and run the equation before I bought the resistors.

So, for the resistor value, I want:

R = ((14.4 * 85) / 1.7) - 85
R = 635 Ohms maximum.
R = ((14.4 * 85) / 2.4) - 85
R = 425 Ohms minimum.

If this doesn't make sense, let me know, I'll elaborate more. If you ever do any electrical work and don't have a multimeter, GET ONE.

 

[gsboi101]

This is good ideal to the one who thought this one out, but Why do we need a resistor to hook the blue led light? We just replacing orange light with a blue one right. Where do i hook the resistor. Does it go to the same place of the LED?

 

[Chuckt]

This is good ideal to the one who thought this one out, but Why do we need a resistor to hook the blue led light? We just replacing orange light with a blue one right. Where do i hook the resistor. Does it go to the same place of the LED?

because the leds mitsu uses and the leds everyone else puts in doesnt have the same power ratings. the resistor is spacific to the led, not the car

 

[a_scobel]

This is good ideal to the one who thought this one out, but Why do we need a resistor to hook the blue led light? We just replacing orange light with a blue one right. Where do i hook the resistor. Does it go to the same place of the LED?

You solder the resistors on the positive leg of the LED. Which is the longer leg. You need resistors because the car runs a higher voltage than the resistor can take. If more voltage goes through an LED than the LED's voltage rating, it'll burn up. I'd suggest reading this wholeee thread though. I doubt there's any questions people have that haven't been answered in this 8-page thread.

As to where to solder the LEDs, solder them straight to the circuit boards on each switch, where the stock bulbs are. This site will give you the idea. To find which part of the circuit board is negative & positive, you have to look at the wiring harness of each switch, & compare them to the switch-end of the harness. Find the green wire with a white stripe in each harness. That's your positive wire. Follow that on the circuit board. That's your positive side. You're going to solder the wires of the LED/resistor to the two silver conductors where the bulbs were. I don't think I can explain it any better than that, without showing pictures.

 

[Jaybone]

I miss this thread!

 

[qtracerboy00]

i was not here when this first started but i say thumbs up on green guages

 

[1gDSMnewbie]

Has anyone writen up a thing for doing HVAC mod and stuff for 1G?????

If so please pm me.

thx

I rigged my 1G HVAC with blue led's but not from Radio Shack I picked up a set of hyper blue leds from Redline and just spliced them in.I also put blue leds in my air vent above the HVAC and blue leds below my radio in the CD holder compartment.My photo is too large to get uploaded but I have the HVAC pics in my photo gallery too.

<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v335/med1um_p1mp1n/MyEclipseinterior007.jpg" alt="Image hosted by Photobucket.com">

 

[napkinthief]

I just wanted to add a note to this, if you wire in an led without a resistor, it will explode. It exploded in my finger and I got a nasty cut and had my girl take out the pieces of plastic with tweezers.

Second, make sure you wire it in right, if you put the positive side onto the negative or ground side, it wont work and you wasted your time.

And last but not least, MAKE SURE THE ENDS OF THE LED DO NOT TOUCH. that means the resistor can never touch the ground end of the led if it is solded on the positive end. This will cause small sparks, and setting paper towels on fire.

 

[Galaxy]

I've been meaning to do this for awhile to my DSMs but just never wanted to "pioneer" it myself and end up riding around with a tore up dash for about a week so I haven't tried yet.I'm seeing that LEDs with 330 ohm resistors were a popular choice at the beginning of this thread but now there are 74 bulbs with leds and it seems like everyones using those toward the end of the thread.I will be going the cheapest of the 2 ways by using resistors and leds but one thing I never found out by reading this thread is why there are light gaps and dim spots.Is there a plastic plate that carries light behind guages or does it just rely on the bulb for the light pattern?

Radio Shack Blue LED's suck,they are more purple than blue and are very dim,look in the Digi-Key catalog.I bought 2 from there and put them in my wiper nozzle lights...lit up the whole side of a house with 2,also got a nice ticket.

The thread will not die until a tech article/how-to,or VFAQ is done on it.

 

[DarkSeraph]

I have done this just to my gauges so far, and I'm still slightly disapointed in the results. I have 13 LEDs, and there are still a few dim spots. Much less my gas gauge does not work at all anymore. I sanded the bottom of my needles, but they barely light up at night. If I were to do this again I'd spend the money to get new gauge faces & buy the stupid needle kit from ImportIntelligence, overpriced as it is.

That's just my 2 cents. I still have to do the rest of my dash, HVAC etc.

 

[1gDSMnewbie]

I just wanted to add a note to this, if you wire in an led without a resistor, it will explode. It exploded in my finger and I got a nasty cut and had my girl take out the pieces of plastic with tweezers.

Second, make sure you wire it in right, if you put the positive side onto the negative or ground side, it wont work and you wasted your time.

And last but not least, MAKE SURE THE ENDS OF THE LED DO NOT TOUCH. that means the resistor can never touch the ground end of the led if it is solded on the positive end. This will cause small sparks, and setting paper towels on fire.

I didn't use any resistors I put the leds in a year and half ago and they're still going strong.I spliced them into the existing positive and negative ground wire in my dash cluster,any time your dealing with wires always use a test light

<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v335/med1um_p1mp1n/MyEclipseinterior008.jpg" alt="Image hosted by Photobucket.com">

 

[Galaxy]

LED's are cool like that,they have a limited life span but you can run more voltage to them,they just won't last as long.Did you check to see if the wire in the guage cluster you wired to was getting 12V? I just can't see an LED getting 12V for a year and a half and not burn up.

I will do the HVAC controls soon and see how that goes,may even tackle that pesky AC switch as well.