Another Dash Light Thread.

[nesh]

hey anyone know how to make the buttons around the Climate Control unite light up brighter?

[mad082]

you mean like the a/c button and all those?

no. had that panel off enough times lately. might look at it down the track tho. i think i have seen a thread about it tho, good luck finding it. post a link on here to it if you find it.

Edited June 5, 2006 by mad082

[nesh]

I put in the grain-of-wheat globes from DickSmith and replaced the caps with blue silicone caps from Repco. It lights up a very dim blue...and it doesn’t blend in with the rest of my lighting, so i pulled out the gauge cluster and replaced the caps on them globes aswell but still the climate control lights are too dim…

Anyway instructions on replacing for the “grain of wheat” globes…

http://www.skylinesaustralia.com/forums/in...+control+lights

Some guys are using LEDs with resonators, I might give this a go but I doubt it would work well because of the way they don’t disperse light well

Some of this is covered here…I think page2

http://www.skylinesaustralia.com/forums/in...l%20lights&st=0

[R DIRTY 3]

If you want to go LED, i used a brand called VARAD. USA made i think. Quite nice and bright.

[mad082]

the colour has a bit to do with it. blue seems to be the dullest in both led and bub covers.

[kezza]

the colour has a bit to do with it. blue seems to be the dullest in both led and bub covers.

no way bro, blue leds are so bright they can blind ya.. just finished hard wiring LEDs into my AC control unit.

I used for they bottom row, from left to right, one 3mm 8000MCD blue led, two hypa bright 16000MCD white leds and then another 3mm blue one.

They are rated 3.2 to 3.3 volts @20MA so for the bottom i got away with wiring them in series so i didnt have to use a resistor.

The top off bottton and stuff i used 2 colour changing lights, i had to use resistors for them, i took some pics!

Oh I also move the whole unit down to the bottom of the dash, cause the DVD screen gets in to way of it...

only a small mod to get it to fit.

Ok, this is the back of the AC unit once pulled out of the car. no easy way of getting around not pulling it all to bits, just be carefull not to break the bottons, i have need cars with broken ones.

The bottom side of the IC is the + one..

This is the front when i finished the bottom 4 leds!

and the final result, and moved to the bottom, for more usability

Hope this has helped

Edited June 10, 2006 by kezza

[RANDY]

Good work!

Nesh: bear in mind that the R33 light globes are tons easier to get to and change. There is a thread on it, and I have done it myself before I knew a thread existed, so you can imagine that it's easy.

Two globes light up all the buttons, and they pop out with a turn of the screwdriver when you get to the back of the AC unit.

I have narva blue caps on new grain of wheat globes, and they are too blue and too dim. I did my demister globe, and reused the stock blue cap, and the button lights up a nice bright solid white. I want that for my AC unit, but I threw away the silicon caps because they ripped into bits when I tried to get them off the old globes.

I've considered white LED's, but with the R33 AC buttons being lit up by only two light sources, I fear that directional LED's are not going to light up the middle (temp up/down) buttons very well.

Anyone have a stock unit that can put pics of what it SHOULD look like?

[arep3]

dont stress too much about the light dispersion from the leds. all of the interior lights in my GTR are blue or white 3 mm leds. they ended up being different strengths depending on where they are. like the leds in the climate control are a stronger MCD rating compared to the dash surround lights. i used white leds behind the coloured hazard button and the up/down button on the climate control. also the on light for the rear dimister. the rest are blue. all of the leds got the tops off them sanded flat to help the light dispersion. the only problem i had is around my defog button on the bottom right on the climate control. the light is directly behind that button where as the others are spread evenly. so that button showed up brighter. i just have a weaker led in that now to even it out.

it turned out to be a really cheap way for fixing my weak lighting prob. all up it cost around $30 including leds and resistors from JAYCAR. i only needed a soldering iron and screwdrivers plyers etc. basic stuff. just time consuming.

[kezza]

i second this.... if you take your time and do your math.. it will work out fine... do it wrong, and they will blow hahahah

[arep3]

overall, it woulda taken me 3 days with 3 visits to jaycar to finish off my lights. (after work. not 3 days solid!) u just gotta mix and match to get the brightness. i neva blew any of em, but threw out a few cos they were too weak. i worked my way up from the weaker leds to the strongest that i wanted. that way the light isnt gonna be in ur face and distractin u from the real thing u should be lookin at at night time. the damn road!

[r32line]

i second this.... if you take your time and do your math.. it will work out fine... do it wrong, and they will blow hahahah

Hey man, im a bit confused, where u changed globes behind button in your climate control unit, it looks like the buttons "OFF" "ECON" and "AC" are still green unchanged? where u not able to replace those globes? cause if not i dont think i will bother doing it myself unless they will all match.

Also, not sure if you would know, but my actual climate control screen (the one showing fan seed, temp etc) sometimes fades really dim then comes birght again, and sometimes gets so dark its barely legible, this is while driving :S. What would cause this, can it be fixed?

Edited June 13, 2006 by r32line

[arep3]

Hey man, im a bit confused, where u changed globes behind button in your climate control unit, it looks like the buttons "OFF" "ECON" and "AC" are still green unchanged? where u not able to replace those globes? cause if not i dont think i will bother doing it myself unless they will all match.

Also, not sure if you would know, but my actual climate control screen (the one showing fan seed, temp etc) sometimes fades really dim then comes birght again, and sometimes gets so dark its barely legible, this is while driving :S. What would cause this, can it be fixed?

it is possible to change all of the lights in the climate control. i know a couple ppl as well as myself that have done it.

http://www.skylinesaustralia.com/forums/in...howtopic=115618

and as for the screen, hmmmm sounds like a loose join somewhere or something. a way to check that MIGHT work is to gently push the screen when its dull and see if it lights up properly. if that happens then id say u have a loose join. go right over it and check all the solders etc. good luck

[kezza]

Hey man, im a bit confused, where u changed globes behind button in your climate control unit, it looks like the buttons "OFF" "ECON" and "AC" are still green unchanged? where u not able to replace those globes? cause if not i dont think i will bother doing it myself unless they will all match.

Also, not sure if you would know, but my actual climate control screen (the one showing fan seed, temp etc) sometimes fades really dim then comes birght again, and sometimes gets so dark its barely legible, this is while driving :S. What would cause this, can it be fixed?

Nah mate the top 3 buttons are 7 colour changing ones, it only looks like that cause when i took the pic they were in the verge of changing colours!

If you look at the pics of the IC board you can see that i have made leds into the top ones

hahaha to the other guys, the dials I have are very hard to come by, sorry cant do a GB, on something i couldnt probly find...

The cyber stork ones are just as good , and you could make them bright and shit with bright LEDs.

[BobyYoo]

Oh I also move the whole unit down to the bottom of the dash, cause the DVD screen gets in to way of it...

only a small mod to get it to fit.

How did you move down the climate to the bottom ??

I would like to do the same, i have a double din radio and i want to move it to the top

[midnight]

you've got to be careful with bigger globes, as they draw more current, when I got my digital cluster in the 180 fixed, the repairman warned me about the wattage of the globes I had in there and that there was a risk of damage and or fire.

[kezza]

you've got to be careful with bigger globes, as they draw more current, when I got my digital cluster in the 180 fixed, the repairman warned me about the wattage of the globes I had in there and that there was a risk of damage and or fire.

its not about globes bro, LEDs use bugger all current! to get better light from your buttons using say a few 16,000MCD Leds rated at about 3.5 volts and go one of two ways of setting them up...

One is to work it in series IE the aircon lower buttons use i think 4 globes. using LEDs with a typical foward voltage of 3.4Volts with a power supply of max voltage of 14V = 4leds running in series using a typical amount of 13.6Volts its ok to under power them to an extent as long as they are not over powered... thats when they will blow!

if you dont want to go that way you can just use 540ohm resistors on each long led of the LEDs then they all have their own power!

[midnight]

I was referring to the original post about using parker globes in the dash cluster.

If you have a look back I actually wrote the original article about putting LEDs into climate controls.

[mad082]

the wattage of the bulbs was the same as the ones i took out.

the wattage of the bulbs was the same as the ones i took out.

[kezza]

I was referring to the original post about using parker globes in the dash cluster.

If you have a look back I actually wrote the original article about putting LEDs into climate controls.

ooops sorry dude! didnt see it mate!

[skyhi747]

Yea EL dash lights suck balls