yARIC008
Drives really slow
Heres the final product. Turned out very well I think, cluster is very vibrant now. I had planned on using the dimmer on the factory light switch but turns out i can't, at least not yet. The dimmer gets it's power for the instrument cluster through the wire for the parking lights. Right now i have everything powered off a relay which gets switched from the parking lights. In order to have the dimmer work with my little LED controller I need at the least a different switch for my parking lights, which i have, just need to rig up and stuff. Anyways, here are some kinda before and after pictures. The old pictures were taken with the same camera i think in the same settings, but of course the camera is very subjective. I brightened up the old pictures because they were so dim you couldn't even see anything. The new ones i just cropped and made smaller in photoshop.
As you can see the dials are bright white and the green is bright green. There is one little area over by the engine temp that isn't lit 100% properly but that's mostly because 1 light/LED lights up 4 guages. The speedo have 3LEDs lighting it and the Tach has 1.
If you're just chimming in, these are the LEDs i used.
http://www.luxeonstar.com/item.php?id=386&link_str=196::198&partno=LXHL-LW3C
Here is the before with the normal incandescent bulbs
Here is with the Luxeon LEDs.
Here is the back of the panel, i used heatsinks bonded with thermal compound on the LEDs and then used a piece of aluminum to be the brace for the back and to also be an extra amount of metal to be an added heatsink.
I cut a hole in the AC tube back there and mounted a fan that would blow at the back of the cluster to keep things cool. While under normal operation with no fan outside before i installed i didn't see any temps over 120 degrees F and the LEDs on the front were cool to the touch, i could keep my finger on them and not feel a thing. If things begin to overheat i can just switch on the AC and cool everything right down. I don't anticipate any overheating though, these should be cooler than the incandescents.
Here is the cluster kinda installed and you can see the front of the LEDs and sorta how i had them held in there.
The same.
Here is it all lit up.
Close up.
Driving View.
As you can see the dials are bright white and the green is bright green. There is one little area over by the engine temp that isn't lit 100% properly but that's mostly because 1 light/LED lights up 4 guages. The speedo have 3LEDs lighting it and the Tach has 1.
If you're just chimming in, these are the LEDs i used.
http://www.luxeonstar.com/item.php?id=386&link_str=196::198&partno=LXHL-LW3C
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Here is the before with the normal incandescent bulbs
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Here is with the Luxeon LEDs.
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Here is the back of the panel, i used heatsinks bonded with thermal compound on the LEDs and then used a piece of aluminum to be the brace for the back and to also be an extra amount of metal to be an added heatsink.
You must be registered for see images
I cut a hole in the AC tube back there and mounted a fan that would blow at the back of the cluster to keep things cool. While under normal operation with no fan outside before i installed i didn't see any temps over 120 degrees F and the LEDs on the front were cool to the touch, i could keep my finger on them and not feel a thing. If things begin to overheat i can just switch on the AC and cool everything right down. I don't anticipate any overheating though, these should be cooler than the incandescents.
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Here is the cluster kinda installed and you can see the front of the LEDs and sorta how i had them held in there.
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The same.
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Here is it all lit up.
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Close up.
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Driving View.