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R33: Replacing Climate Control Bulbs With Leds

naga

By naga,
in Tutorials / DIY / FAQ

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naga Collaborator

naga

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Disclaimer: I'm not liable for any damage resulting from this tutorial!! Use at your own risk!

While driving at night i noticed it was hard to find buttons. My dash looked like this:

IMG_0928.jpg

So i went on a search for info on replacing the bulbs with blue leds coz i thought it'd look cool. Unfortunately no one had done a whole tutorial before.

Anyway jaycar has a article on using LEDs

it's pretty simple really

Just need to wire them up like this

leddiagram.jpg

So i went and bought 5mm blue LED 1000MCD (ZD-184 i think) and 330ohm resistors to go inline. You can put any led u want just need to recalculate the resistor value

IMG_0965.jpg

Now to get to the climate control unit you need to open up the dash.

NS2500's tute should have enough info to get the climate control unit out

Once you get it out and turn it around there's 2 globes on each side like this

IMG_0954.jpg

Put a flathead screw driver in and 1/4 turn it should come out.

They have wire wrapped around the the plastic casing. You'll need to reuse the plastic casing so ye don't damage it. Unwrap the wires from the old globe and remember how it was wrapped.

To put my LED in i had to sand the lip on the bottom to get it to fit. Was 1mm too big. There's not enough space to put the resistor infront of the casign so i decided to put it behind the casing. So it looked like this

IMG_0952.jpg

You need to be very careful the wires don't short out so trim them nicely. Make sure the resistor doesn't get shorted neither. Keep in mind it has to be reliable because i found out the hard way that the illumination runs on the same fuse as the parkers,indicators and tail lights(not brake). Stupid design.

Anyway stick the LED back in like this:

IMG_0953.jpg

Make sure u test it before u put it all back together. LEDs are directional meaning you can only put them in 1 way. positive and negative don't matter for bulbs but do for LEDs. So ye trial and error is the way to go because there are no labels to tell negative from positive.

Repeat for the otherside and put everything back and you get this

IMG_0958.jpg

If you wanna know how to do the hazard and demister buttons theres already a tutorial here

http://www.gtr.co.uk/forum/upload/showthre...ighlight=hazard

i blew up the fuse 3 times trying to do my demister so i gave up.

The fuse is in the boot just incase your clumsy like me. 10A 3rd from the front labelled "ALT"

naga Collaborator

naga

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Notice how one leg on the LED is shorter than the other? It's how you can tell the difference between positive and negative. I'm pretty sure that the short leg is the negative one.. but don't quote me on that.

yep shorter leg goes to the negative

BobyYoo Apprentice

BobyYoo

Posted
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Will this method work for the dash lights where the speedo gauges, etc. are? Or that a whole different setup?

the bulb will be different for the cluster

DIY link for R32 cluster

http://www.pinnacledetailing.com/greg/LED_Conversion/

mad082 Grand Master

mad082

Posted
Posted

the speedo bulbs are a standard park light bulb. i put blue led park light bulbs in mine but it was really hard to see, so i went to phillips blue vision bulbs.

see here for results.

http://www.skylinesaustralia.com/forums/in...=119707&st=

  • 2 months later...
king_kw13 Rising Star

king_kw13

Posted
Posted

Hi naga,

thanks for the post, it was very informative. My climate control unit lights just stopped working COMPLETELY (both blubs) at the same time so its completely dark. The temp is still working. Do you think that it is the fuse?

You mentioned something about the fuse being in the boot. I know of a fuse box in the bonnet, and also under the dash, but is there also one in the boot? Do they control the lights on the console? Thanks heaps

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