Instrument Cluster Light Pollution (Help!)

Longtime listener, first time- wait wrong format.

When driving at night, I prefer a dark cabin. Who doesn't, right? My instrument cluster hovers around 30% brightness. However, when I switch over to my high beams, my face and the rest of my cabin is illuminated Avatar blue. It's a beacon at sea, a 70 mph blue light special; and I cannot stand it. It's like driving behind the lens of a J.J. Abram's film.

Short of putting a small, strategically placed square of electrical tape above the housing, is there any way I can dim or replace the little blue bulb that frustrates me behind the wheel?

I'm no electrician, but I am particular. Is it simply a colored filter on the housing? If swapping the bulb is the answer, would it be possible to swap in an amber replacement to unify my dashboard and my life?

Thanks in advance.

 

Dunno a good solution other than maybe a lower wattage bulb, if you can find one with the right base.

However, I do appreciate your contribution to my collection of 'first world automotive problems'.

 

It's a surface mount LED, deep inside the instrument cluster. If you're gonna change it, you need to remove the cluster, remove the needles, and remove the gauge face, and then solder a different LED to the board. If you're gonna put a light filter on it, you still need to remove the needles and gauge face. It seems like the easiest way would be to put a resistor in the pink wire. I'm not an electronics engineer, so I have no idea what value to use.

https://www.customtacos.com/tech.ol...6toyewd/06toypdf/ewd/2006/tacoma/h/em01d7.pdf

 

Hah! You're certainly welcome. These are the things that present themselves while waiting to replace higher ticket items

A resistor would make the most sense, essentially lowering the power supplied to the specific bulb. Thank you very much for the schematic as well!

 

Black Electrical Tape can fix almost as much stuff as Duct tape! I have a strip of it covering half the face of my movable Sirius XM radio unit on my dash.
Maybe a small dot of black paint directly in line with the bulb will reduce the glare while still letting you see the high beams are on.

 

Bravo, sir. Excellent analogy.

Unfortunately I'm no EE and know just enough about Ohm's law to start an electrical fire so I can't help you calculate the proper resistor, but there are LED resistance calculators available on line. Don't let out the magic smoke!

 

Also, something to consider. There's already a resistor in the circuit to drop the 14.4V down to about 1.5V, so the resistor you add will be in addition to what's already there. Too low of a resistance and it won't change the brightness. Too high of a resistance and it won't light up.

 

Instead of electrical tape, use black polypropylene strapping tape. It'll darken the lights. I did this to my router.

Might be hard to see, but I used one layer across the lights, then a second layer on the annoying blue lights.

 

Ah! Muting the light rather than blacking it out completely. Thank you!