Who has done aftermarket dash and cluster lights?

watch ebay and every once and a while the 01-02 4runner heater control will show up but they are getting rarer and rarer to find

a quick check shows this one: http://www.ebay.com/itm/01-02-TOYOT...ash=item280876580a:g:oIUAAOSwLqFV8dN0&vxp=mtr

and there is one other for 60 something dollars

 

@keakar did it, unless he's running a whole unit from a 4runner?

 

yes I went with the whole unit so the button LEDs would be green instead of orange

but I also replaced the lights with LEDs too

word of note people, take those 4 screws out and remove the circuit board from the white housing before replacing the bulbs,

cant tell you how many people break off that little tip of the circuit board while changing the last bulb under the fan switch that you cant access very well

 

I wonder if using red leds would be easier on your night vision. Could be beneficial when driving at night. I think the military uses that color when concerned about night vision. Anybody used red?

 

Look at page 1-3 if I remember right. Someone has a red dash. But the picture makes it look like orange

 

Word, I only have the face plate and knobs so getting those other bulbs probably wouldn't be worth it to me them/

 

you cant replace the button LEDs anyway, they are a special voltage and they are special sized flattened LED bulbs, plus they are soldered onto the circuit board and the frame that holds them has melted on tabs that must be carefully broken off in a way to allow you to pry it off but still be able to glue it back in place so I consider them to be unreplaceable. I took one apart I found in a junk yard and replaced the LEDs but it wouldn't work because they are "special" LEDs, ended up the control was useless after

 

anybody have a pic of what this looks like in the dark with white bulbs?

 

using the 4runner control with the white faceplate, buttons, and knobs

 

SWEEEET!!!

and the buttons are green?

 

yes, the LEDs inside the buttons are green but this picture shows the control after the 3 lights were replaced with the forward and side facing LED neo wedge bulbs.

if you just use forward facing LED lights the button images don't light up

go back to the last page or the one before it and we talked about which type to get

 

Yeah no problem. I just posted that bulb mod on the last page.

 

I'm not talking about the button led's, I'm talking about the ac and defroster button icons we talked about earlier. I do agree that the green buttons with blue icons would look wayy better than the orange. One day.

 

I understand. The same as here right?

Edit: Oops. Nevermind. I see what you mean. But you can see in my photo that the icons still show up with the forward facing bulbs I used.

 

well sort off, but you want the forward as well as side facing LEDs like these:

 

awesome. ok thanks.

 

Good evening ladies, I have a dash picture(s).

3 pix were taken in my garage with overhead fluorescent lighting as background light, no camera flash, as all-off, parking lights on, ignition switch turned on to show how they match with the existing OEM warning dash lights.

As you can see, they aren't as bright as the existing OEM warning dash lights and likely aren't as bright as the original backlight incandescents they replaced. (26 lumens.) Not polarity sensitive; can be installed either direction in the socket.

I bought 4 of these, part # WLED-NW5 in Natural White from superbrightleds.com

https://www.superbrightleds.com/mor...-bulb-5-led-miniature-wedge-retrofit-car/199/



I like 'em! Not overbearing at all, subdued really. Looks factory, and better to me than the orange. The 360-degree spec is ... curious to me. They only have a 220-degree beam. The 90mph and 2000RPM sections are a tad brighter. Not the pure, clear white that my stock '06 Accord is, but that's on a whole 'nother level of sophistication not rooted in a '95 design.

 

1st gen Tacomas are so different that they should be really call 1st-a, 1st-b 1st-c and so on. Different dash, clusters, air control even different dimmer.

Anyway I have 1st-a generation with simple 2-wire 10ohm rheostat for dimmer. If you have that the changing dash to LED is not that trivial - dimmer will not work. I mean it will not dim LEDs and if you leave any standard bulb in the dash (including bulbs in switches) the dimmer will not work on them either. It is simple I = U/R rule.

So for me in order to make original dimmer to work (I'm talking about the 1-st gen low end dimmer) I had to replace every bulb with LED including bulbs in AC switch and emergency flash switch. Additionally I made my own electronic dimmer circuit connected in series with original dimmer. This way I can set the brightness from "full blast" to "hardly visible" and also can turn lights off.

I went for cool white superbright LED:
Flasher switch - NEOx LED Bulb - High Power Instrument Panel LED 4mm NEO4-xHP Cool White
AC switch - NEOx LED Bulb - High Power Instrument Panel LED 3mm NEO3-xHP Cool White
Vent control - 74 LED Bulb - 3 SMD LED - Miniature Wedge Retrofit Cool White
Instrument panel - 194 LED Bulb - 5 SMD LED Tower - Miniature Wedge Retrofit Cool White

The result is like that (full blast):


Instrument panel and vent control is simple swap, but switches it is different story. LED type NEOx bulbs are directional with the LED facing the top of the bulb, but in switches they need to direct the light perpendicular to the base. In the picture below you see original NEOx bulbs (on the left), Superbright LED NEOx bulb (next to them) and modified LED NEOx bulb with the LED facing to the side.



Yes it requires tedious job on re-soldering tine SMD LED but result is worth the trouble.

Now for the dimmer I made the simple circuit board (my own design) based on LT3085 linear regulator.

Shrik-wrapped is connected between original dimmer and the rest of the circuit (almost transparent) without additional modifications





Here is the video of dimmer working:

 

Excellent work there! I don't envy anyone soldering SMD's by hand ... doubt I could even do it.

That's how I feel about most of this site. If it's not specifically in the 1st Gen section, you're probably about someone's 2nd Gen. And I hear you about the early trucks; I bet it's the same thing for you guys: By simply of '01-'04 trucks being newer/more recent, you'd probably see more threads pertaining to those.

Your post here got me re-thinking about the cool white temp color. In your picture, they look too blue to me, and that's what I wanted to avoid by using natural white so that it didn't fatigue at night on long trips. But in your video, which might have captured the light more accurately, they look like a whiter white, which I'd prefer. Is that the case, that your video is more what they really look like in terms of color temp?

 

That was nothing comparing to soldering job I did when making my own 450 lumens puddle light bulb in my 4Runner:

Actually the color on the picture in the garage is a little more blue because the camera tried to pickup the reflection of orange front markers (they are more orange than it is shown on the picture). Additionally the blue-gray dash cover is reflecting the light turning them into more blue than they are. I don't like blue lights.

The color on the video is more realistic. They are white without hint of blue nor orange. I believe they are 5000K bulbs. They are very bright and in full blast I can see that they are lighting my dash even during the full sun day. For the night driving I can dim them almost to nothing and my radio has a feature of turning the screen off, so no problem with night vision.

I tried red light for night vision (I am GA pilot and often I used red cabin light) but I just don't like it. I found that dimmed white light will not kill my night vision but I can read charts much better than with even high bright red light.