John, we need to add some of this to the FAQ section so people will stop getting confused.

We do NOT have LEDs in our cluster... it's 5 incandescent bulbs backlighting an LCD panel through a colored plastic filter. You can replace the filter with another color, but darker colors (like blue) typically require a brighter light. The LCD panel itself has a slight yellowish tinge to it, so that will affect color purity. You can change the bulbs with LED cluster bulbs, but that will more than likely look worse due to the standard LED cluster bulb being fairly directional.

YMMV...

 

umm.. Any cluster pics????? anyone?

 

i sodered a buncha leds to a panel board i bought from radio shack.. If I ever find the pics, ill post them

 

How much did it cost for the board and LED's? How much soldering time did it take? Any chance of a DIY? Kind of a step-by-step of what you did? I REALLY want to do something like this, but I need a reference point so i can get it done in a weekend, as the S is my daily driver. Any chance of a pic that is not a fuzzy?

Any way to install brighter lights? (without having the directional issue of the LED cluster)?

John

 

Pics of dash cluster pulled apart???

 

its a lot of trial and error. the pic i posted is before the redo. after the redo is with about 3x more leds, so there is less spotting. I can post pics, but a DIY would not do much good, as it takes a lot lot lot of steps, prepping, purchasing, etc.

 

I realize it was probably a pretty large undertaking. Roughly how many LED's did you end up using? What board did you purchase from Radiochack? Filters?

I am not necessarily looking for a road map on what to do, but more of a compass.

Probably a bit too much to ask, but any chance of a photo of that board (completed) for comparison reasons.

If not, if I can snag an extra speedo cluster off ebay to use in the S, how much $ to get you to do this for me? (I will mail you my speedo cluster to work on)

Thanks

John

 

let me dig up the pictures. There are roughly 120 leds total i think, for the entire dash. the panel at radio shack i just a panelboard for like 4.99. No copper on it or anything. just a plain ol' panel board. Filter i got from a board member a long time ago, it was the dash color kit, so it was precut. I suggest colored transparencies from staples or something... should work the same way. I wouldnt expect you to be able to do this over a weekend though... it musta taken me over 80 hrs total to do.

I'd have to charge u a rediculous amout of money to do it for you, because its a PITA! I probably wouldnt do it again if i could go back in time. Also, i'd be hesitant doing this commercially, as its not tested. I wouldn't warranty this work.. What happens if a few LEDs burns out? I wouldnt be able to help, ya know? DIY is the only way.

I got the LEDs from superbrightleds.com. They are the bulk high flux ones. Blue for the dash, white for the cluster.

 

also keep in mind you will need resistors to properly drive the LEDs, or they will wear out. There is a resistor calculater here:

http://metku.net/index.html?sect=view&n=1&...dcalc/index_eng

 

pictures of the back and install are lost forever!

apparently i stored them on a partition on my HDD. I reformated the OS partion after a virus pwn3d me and totally forgot about the pics in the other partion. The partition is still there, but the folders read 0 bytes.