hello guys
i noticed that the area on the tach around 4-5K area is a little dim compared to the rest of the band.
is this a bulb i can replace or is the entire LCD ($400+ unfortunately) need to be repaired/replaced?
any help would be appreciated
L

 

You can replace the backlit bulbs. I've had to replace a few. The main thing is getting the cluster out to get to them.

I would replace all the main ones while you're in there.

 

Isn't the tach just LED segments? Why would any of the dash backlighting bulbs affect tach brightness?

If sections of tach aren't as bright, doesn't it mean those segments aren't operating properly?

 

the dash cluster is an LCD with incandescent bulbs for backlighting, one (or more) of your bulbs are burned out so you'll need to remove the cluster and replace the bulbs

 

How does backlighting affect the tach?

Isn't each block of the tach is an LED segment? LEDs are lights. They don't need another light to light them.

AFAIK, while there are something like a dozen incandescent bulbs in the cluster, each one is for a specific button or dash symbol.

Each thing that lights up in the dash is either an LED segment (all the 'gauges', tach, fuel level, temp, etc), or a bulb (lots of them in the pods, Start button, up/down toggle for volume and fan, Mute, Mode, the HVAC dial, etc).

I am not aware of any 'backlighting' in our dash at all. Normally backlighting is used to illuminate a traditional gauge, that does not emit any light on its own. But we don't have any of those.

 

The cluster does not have any LED segments. The display is a segmented backlit LCD. Similar to an LCD display on a pocket calculator.

The cluster has backlight bulbs which shine through a color filter, then the LCD display either blocks or allows the backlight through to display RPMs/fuel/speed/temp. If a backlight bulb burns out, part of the cluster will appear dim.

Qube engineering's LED backlight install guide gives a good view of a disassembled cluster, pages 8-11 show where the bulbs mount.: http://www.qube-engineering.com/Docu...nsAP1_v1.1.pdf

 

Excellent! Thanks so much for clarifying. And especially for the well explained answer. This board is such a tremendous resource. Always learning something new.

So one incandescent bulb illuminates several segments. Each segments LCD is individually controlled so it can light the tach up or down in sequence. The LCD segment is either 'open' or 'closed', to let the light through. If one bulb is burned out, the light from other segments still shines through enough to see tach, just dimmer than usual.

Interesting.