Hvac Knobs

[AlbinoMonkeyRat]

is there a way to make those lights in the knobs brighter? I painted them with transparent blue, and masked some designs onto them and did a solid coat. But it seems the original lights are too dim for the designs to light up well. Any suggestions?

[smlzalero]

you can change the bulbs out for brighter ones, good luck with that.

Or you could always try to stick a neon in there, lol. :P

[AlbinoMonkeyRat]

I don't think a neon will fit...<_<

[jamcllw]

not sure what kind of lights are back there but could possibly replace them with some of those LEDs from oznium

[smlzalero]

They're incandescents that are on the board, I'm sure you can do LEDs. just pop it open and look at em.

they are 2-3mm 12v incandescents on a board, you have to remove those and put LEDs with resistor into the board, something I wasnt to do when I have more time.

[-Alero-]

why would you have to put resistors in? i dont see why you couldnt just solder in some new 2-3 mm LED's in

[AlbinoMonkeyRat]

^ I'm assuming it's so you don't blow a fuse.

[cherrington17]

the lights that are there now, are made for 12v. led's are not. you would need the resistor to take the 12v down to the 3-4v that the led runs at.

[AlbinoMonkeyRat]

what if I replace each bulb with a small cluster of three or four 3-4v LED's? Should I wire them (each cluster) in series or parallel?

[cherrington17]

i think if you put it on the board, it'll be powered (since the ones on there are) so you won't be able to run them in parallel... you'd have to change the whole circuit board.

all you gotta do is solder the resistor on the + or - side. nothing major. why is everyone so afraid of them?

[AlbinoMonkeyRat]

personally, I just don't wanna f*** it up. I want it done right, so I'm asking a ton of questions to be safe. Thanks!

[smlzalero]

Replace each bulb with 4 LEDs?? Damn how bright do you want this poop to be? There's 4 or 5 bulbs in there.. that's 25 LEDs in 6 inches of space.

[cherrington17]

yeah, good catch... thats gonna be way bright. in the center of my switch plate. (pic below) there are 2 led's in there, and they shine right back to the back seat... i think 3-4 in place of each would be way overkill. each led is going to be much brighter then the ones in there...

With the resistors, the main reason is to bring down the current that's going through the LED's. If you were to try and run a single LED at 12V, it'd be really bright... for the half second before it burned out. Depending on the LED's used, you'd probably need 4 in there to make them work nicely with 12V... that's what I've used in my gauge cluster. But the easiest way to do it would be like it was said... just take a single LED and wire it in with a resistor attached to it.

[AlbinoMonkeyRat]

lol...I didn't know there were that many bulbs in there. I ahven't exactly gutted the thing open yet.

Maybe 12v rated LED's?

[smlzalero]

you should pop it open and take a gander at what you'll be dealing with.. maybe you'll get another idea as to what you wanna do.

Originally posted by AlbinoMonkeyRat@Jun 6 2005, 06:55 PM
Maybe 12v rated LED's?

Quoted post

^^^ Not that that is a bad idea but I have seach for a while for 12V LEDs, Problem that I have come across is that the 12v ones avail are in red yellow and green, mainly for things like PC application.

Waterglass cased LEDs can come in the whole spectrum of colours, you just have to hook them up in the right way to drop down the current, wether that be with resistor or running them in series. One option is to 'dirty up' the bulb by scuffing it up and dimpling the end, and then coating it in something like hot glue. I had to so this for the Hibeam indicator in my dash (Last pic in photobucket) cause that was bright.

Do some fooling around first but its not that bad.G/L

how do you pull the black off the knobs??? sorry i know this belongs in how to