LED dash lights - DONE!

[wheelspin]

Hey Guys,
Here's a couple pics of my LED dash light conversion. I changed them to orange LED's - which are orangy-red as you can see. I wanted them to be more lighter orange. It's not bad, but I'll have a go at white and blue LED's when they arrive. I also painted my needles with red tanslucent paint. They look good during the day but they reduce the amount of light output at night (as you can see from the two larger needles). I'll have to fix those up.


I'll also do a write up with the new LED's (I couldn't find my digi camera for this one).


Wheelspin

[DIDZ]

Looks good mate :D

How long did it take to do it?

[sicknx]

looks good dude, definetly would like to see what it looks like with blue

[SIR _NX]

I've had red led's in my dash for some time now.... however I only put them in the outside two bulb holders and kept a cool white led in the middle bulb holder - the resultn is a cool effect that grades red from the outside edges into white in the middle!! I love it!!
NOTE: Make sure you get top quality leds - if you don't they wont be bright enough to see!! (From experience!!)

[wheelspin]

Yay, I received my batch of white and blue LED's today. I'll give them a go tomorrow and do a writeup as I go.

It's piss easy to make. The hard part is taking the car apart and trying not to break anything. To do the LED's all you need is a little patience and a little skill with soldering - both of which I don't have !!

Oh yeah, I used a small white LED for the clock. It came out a nice frost blue which I'm happy with. I also got a red led for the clock, so I'll mix and match.

I used the brightest LED's I could find, so hopefully they'll come out nice and bright. The pics don't really show the true vlaues of the light due to the exposure time. It's actually a fair bit dimmer than in the pics.

[MaxNx]

Congrats Wheelspin looks damn good. I've settled with a set of Arctic Blue globes and a red cover over the clock light. I now have bright white dials and a red clock. I'll get around to uploading some pics one day :eyerotate

[nexis]

Ive got the same set up only mines blue......

Hate to dissapoint but you dont need to get LED's for that.

Go to autobarn and buy the bulb covers blue/yellow/red what ever colour you like. Cost you about 10 bucks max. Autometer ones are a bit dear as they are about $14 a pack. Get generics. They are like mini condoms, you peel them on plug your bulb back in and hey presto. You could even make half you dash fade from one colour to another i guess if you wanted........

Go forth, and prosper....... :cheers:

[Nugget]

yeh but the bulb covers fade man

[MaxNx]

Sorry Nexis but you really haven't dissapointed anyone here. The attempt to use LED was one that arose out of the need for a BRIGHT colour. Covers have a tendency to dim the overall effect, not to mention a set that i got that were less coloured in some areas than others.

[NXR20T]

Hey wheelspin, you gotta get some fuel mate

[wheelspin]

Hey that's pretty good fuel! My tank doesn't really get to see over half full these days due to the increased fuel prices and no $$ in the wallet hehe!

nexis, MaxNX is right. I only turned to LED's because the coloured silcone sleeves give a pretty dull light. The lights are pretty dim from the factory, and adding an extra layer of coloured sleeves on top of that only make it worse :( I've seen attempts of using the sleeves before, and it gives a light blue/aqua light whereas I'm after a pure blue like the VW's.
Anyway, I broke one of the blue LED's today *fuk fuk fuk* :madshake: :tool2: :hitwall: :sold:
The white LED's turned out great. A little better than the PolarG T-10 wedge bulbs I had in there before (PolarG bulbs are around $25-$30 a pair! Luckily I had 3 spares ones around!).

I 'll have to order one more blue - I'll also get a couple spare just in case.

Sorry no pics yet. I wasn't in the mood after breaking the LED :smurf:

[nexis]

Well all valid points.

I dont think mine are "dull" tho i guess they could be brighter......

And as far as fading over time, i dont know, cos i only did it about 6 months ago and ive only driven it a handfull of times in that period.

Anyway. how much did this cost all up?

[SircatmaN]

Would anyoen be able to tell me how to do this to an N13 to change them to blue? (Sorry Im not to great at figuring this stuff out for myself).

[wheelspin]

They only cost me $7.50 in LED's (3@$2.50 each) and 38c for a pack of resistors. I ordered my LED's from a guy in Victoria though, so postage was another $2.00. All up under $10.00.


SircatmaN, wait until I receive my new LED's and I'll do the write-up. I'm assuming it'll be the same (just replacing the standard wedge bulbs with LED's). I'm ordering the LED's today, so I should have it done during the weekend.

[ZeffriN]

Hey Wheelspin,


Did you use those super bright blue LEDs and what resistance do you need for this?

Are the lights in series on the dash so did you need to take into account collective forward voltages?

I'd like to do blue leds in my NX, that must look so cool... if you wouldn't mind could you please provide a little more specific information on the wiring for this...

Im only really concerned about what resistors need to be used where... The soldering isnt a problem, also... howcome the clock turned out blue with a white LED? Just because the display is tinged grey?

Great work btw, this one Im keen to emulate soon as I get some free time :)

[wheelspin]

Hi ZeffriN, yeah I ended up using the superbright blue's, but one of them stopped working so now I've got some superwhite ones in there.

To work out the resistance required, you need the maximum forward voltage (Vf) of the LED's, which is normally around high 3V for blue and white, and low 3V for orange, red, yellow and green.
Then you need the current flow, which is expressed in milliAmps (mA).
You should be able to get this info from the manufacturer/seller e.g. Jaycar has it listed on their site in their products page.
From there you assume a power source of 14.4V (when the car is on). You deduct the LED's Vf value from the power source (14.4), then divide the result by the current rating (mA). That'll give you the required resistance. If you can't find that resistor then go for the next higher one e.g. for 125 Ohm just get a 130 Ohm.

E.g. for a LED with 3.5Vf and 50mA:
(14.4 - 3.5)/0.05 = 218 Ohm (You'd get a 200 Ohm resistor)

That was for one LED. For parallel you'd need one resistor for each LED, calculated in the same fashion as above.
For series e.g. POWERSOURCE------LED-----LED-----LED-----END, you need to combine all the LED Vf's. You will then deduct this value (10.5V for above example) from the 14.4V instead of using 3.5:
(14.4 - 10.5)/0.05 = 78 Ohm resistor.

The wiring for the dash cluster is in parallel so you'd need one for each LED, calculated using the first method.

As for the clock, I don't know? I guess it must've had a blue/grey tinge to it. Mines now orange.


Hope it was helpful, I tried to cover as much as I could. I've got a pic of a LED soldered to the resistor which I'll upload for you if I can find it.

When my holidays come around again I'll give it another shot with red and some true blue leds (the ones I used weren't pure blue).

Cheers.

[ZeffriN]

Thanks wheelspin!

That just answered all my questions, think a bright blue dash is on the cards for next fortnight. :D

[chowie]

If I were you I would put a IntelliGlow Needle Kits on that dash just to make it look better at night. Here is a link (http://www.importintelligence.com/FMPro?-db=Cart.fp3&-format=listnew.htm&-new) There is also ather nx stuff there. (mine has a white tac from there)