LED Hotspots on Gauge Cluster

[Philbar71]

So a while back I put some LEDs in my cluster, these,

http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-bin/store/index.cgi?action=DispPage&Page2Disp=%2Fspecs%2FWLED-x5.htm - The cool white ones.

And I cleared the blue crap off of the gauge face part (sorry, I dont know the real name for it. lol) it looks good and im pretty happy with the result, I just dont like the hotspots around the 3K range in the tach and the 35-65MPH range.

Here is a pic (A crappy cell phone pic, sorry)

http://img547.imageshack.us/img547/4928/downsizeg.jpg

and another

http://img44.imageshack.us/img44/1250/downsize1.jpg

Soooo, is there any way to dim those hot spots? And yes, I colored my needles red with a sharpie. I hated the white glow they had.

[wrestlingandrunning]

I believe sanding the tips of the led flat will do the trick.

[Gr1m]

you can try to sand the tip of that bulb flat instead of round, just be careful not to sand too much or you will ruin the bulb.

[Philbar71]

Ohh. Yeah thats a good idea. I'll try that.

Another question, How would I go about coloring the red line actually red. Ive tried a red sharpie and thats too dark. Right now all I used is a red dry erase marker but as you can see the color is kind of splotchy. Is there some kind of colored film or tape for this?

[Gr1m]

red LED? you could try nail polish aswell. not sure if either will work for you.

[Philbar71]

It's too complex/ not worth it just to have a single red LED to illuminate the redline red. lol. I was thinking along the lines of something like colored tape. Hmm...

[cherrington17]

too complex?? too do it properly and have your needle turn red when it gets over to the red line?? pfft. wuss.

You could put a white on the low end, yellow top, red right. (or any variation) and have the needles change as it sweeps across....



and grim already beat me too it. sand that top bubble, on the led. you can even try to darken it a little with a sharpie, after you sand it.

[Philbar71]

too complex?? too do it properly and have your needle turn red when it gets over to the red line?? pfft. wuss.

You could put a white on the low end, yellow top, red right. (or any variation) and have the needles change as it sweeps across....



and grim already beat me too it. sand that top bubble, on the led. you can even try to darken it a little with a sharpie, after you sand it.

I dont think he mean backlighting the needle, I think he meant backlighting the physical redline part on the tach.

But the needle Idea sounds pretty neat... I am eventually going to do the LED glow needleds and I may try something like that.

[03Sleepr]

I dont think he mean backlighting the needle, I think he meant backlighting the physical redline part on the tach.

But the needle Idea sounds pretty neat... I am eventually going to do the LED glow needleds and I may try something like that.

I'd like to do the same...but doesnt the glow needle only use 1 LED? edit: one led per needle of course

[sleepyalero]

i wanna see a how-to on this! i really like the way this turned out good job!

[Philbar71]

^ you mean clearing the cluser? It's pretty easy. I just scraped the blue crap off with my knife. lol.

I'd like to do the same...but doesnt the glow needle only use 1 LED? edit: one led per needle of course

and its best to back light the needles with 3 LEDs.

[Shiwnath]

Instead of using red sharpie, you could have used red vinyl. It might have shown up more clear. I put blue on the back of my needles. Heres what it looks like:
http://www.aleromod.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=9238&stc=1&d=1281042625

[Philbar71]

^ Nice, and where did you get this vinal from?

[Shiwnath]

Ebay, right here: http://cgi.ebay.ca/Any-Color-Transparent-Vinyl-3-sheets-Free-S-H-/120419360796?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c098da01c
this is the one with the adhesive backing.

[Philbar71]

I'll check that out.

And all I did for the needles is pop them off, scrape the white paint off the back then colored them with a red sharpie. that's it. Looks legit in the daytime too.

[Bigshot44]

how to do you remove the black bezel so you can take off the green from behind and apply the other colored vinyl?

[Shiwnath]

how to do you remove the black bezel so you can take off the green from behind and apply the other colored vinyl?

Once you pry out the cluster, there are these little hook things that hold the transparent plastic(that faces the driver) to the cluster. You have to push those pins off from the cluster one at a time making sure any of them don't get hooked again. Once you get that thing off you're left with the bare insturment panel. Pull off all the needles and you're left with the black piece. The black piece is glued to the cluster assembly. Just go slowly and start pulling it off. I used goo-gone to help with this process. Some of the glue will be left on the black piece and I found that the goo gone did help and it didnt damage the black piece(atleast for me it didnt). Once you get the glue off you can see that there is some sort of blue crap on the black piece that makes the cluster light up green. Just sand it off by hand with sand paper. If you start growing impatient then take a break because you really don't wanna cut corners when doing this. Also it might be a PITA recalibrating all the needles to read 100% properly after doing this. This is the method I used and it worked for me.

[robalero]

before you pull your needles off, use a chalk or something and make a line of where the needles currently sit

[Bigshot44]

so i got it off and scraped the blue stuff, any ideas on where i can get white inverted t10's in a local store, im too impatient to wait for the ones from ebay.