Use a colored gel (photo product) between the display and plastic cover. It would "filter" the light coming through the lens. Photographers use them to color light and thus color a photograph.

Instrument Panel Display<---------[Gel]<-----------Clear Plastic Display Cover<-----------

The display would be seen through the gel. It would be a cheap thing and should work as long as only a tint is used - blue for instance.

Hope I was a bit clearer this time.

 

Actually the "color filter is behind the LCD panel.

That's how I did it for my tests!

It works OK for all the colors - except for blue...in order to get a nice blue color the tint has to be very dark and then the bulbs aer not strong enough anymore.

Using bigger bulbs is impossible...you would burn the electronics behind!

Yves

 

I've been working on this a bit too, and I don't think it's gonna be as easy as picking a color gel and putting it on a template in the instrument cluster. I'm not sure if it's the bulbs in the cluster, the LCD sheet, or a combination of the two, but the color without any template is YELLOW, not white. (see image below).

Therefore, a blue filter will produce a greenish tint. Oliver and stocky are making some headway, but if you look closely, there is no rich blue color in either of their spectrums . I'm hoping that replacing the bulbs will cut down on the yellow color, but I haven't researched where the yellowish hue is coming from.

Intrument cluster lighting without the color template

 

"but if you look closely, there is no rich blue color in either of their spectrums"

that's exactly what I'm talking about so therefore I am working on a different solution

I don't want to take ahead as far as I don't know how it will look like....

But thanks for the "Yellow" information

Yves

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by DJ Qube
[B]Therefore, a blue filter will produce a greenish tint.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Garyj
[B]

The yellow is coming from your mixing in the blue.

 

Hello Folks,

actually,the LCD itself dims the light and gives it a yellowish color.

That's the problem I encountered today.

I tried it with 2 bright diffuse LED's (60 degrees beam angle) without diffuse plastic.

The were running at 14 V 470 Ohm @25 mAmps each.

The LCD just "eats" the brightness



Then I tried it with one superbright LED (15 degrees beam angle) ...that looks nead but it definitely needs a diffus plastic (like the other solution too) but I guess you'll have to put a t least 6 of them just to enlight th espeedo at the overall brightness to look nice.

The color is exactly the one I would go for



With blue greetings,

Yves

P.S.: In both cases there was also a blue filter between the LED's and the LCD (I put some mosaic patter to better see the speedo area)

 

Just for info if anyone wants to try something out:

The original light bulbs take 0.2 amps at 13,8 Volts.

Be sure not to exceed this value ( you can put up to 8 bright LED's )

to prevent burning the tracks on the board!

Yves

 

I think you will need a dichroic filter. That filter looks (reflects) yellowish to our eyes, but will only transmit blue light. It's used in photographic applications. I'll find out more...

 

Now guys watch this



I'm so blue

Yves