Dash Light Mod Success

ohh sweet!!!! thank u sooooo much. I thought i was this whole big long confusing thing but u hella made it simple for me.

 

still wanna meet up w/yosh and have him do mine. just havent had a chance to head out his direction lately.

 

u can also sandpaper the needles and then paint over them if u are changin the color and use model paint (like for the toy cars). if u sandpaper them down i think they should be white so it should change to the LED color u choose for them

 

if you sand them down they will be frosted as the sanding will make the clear plastic frosted. if you scrap the orange off w/ a knife, they will be clear, depending on how good you are!

one of the clusters i did the guy wanted to change the needle color and he did it while i was soldiering.

 

nice to know that. wonder if the frosting look would look like crap?

 

I would suggest just to use alcohol and a cotton pad. Thats what I did and it only took about 15 minutes to do all the needles. Just keep at it and use some elbow grease, the color will come off.

On a side note, anyone know why my red in the tach is not lighting up like the other people that did blue?

 

the two posts are related.

the color on the backside of the needles "catch" the light from the LED, making the needle more visible. for example, try aiming a flashlight into the side of a piece of plexiglass, you will not be able to see anything if you look at the plexiglass at a right angle from the flashlight. now, if you sand the backside of the plexiglass, it will "catch" the light and you will be able to see it. make sense.

so in closing....
07tacoark - if you frost the needles, they will "catch" the light more than if you just wiped them clean, therefore making them more visible. i personally would only suggest this if your trying to get a different color than OEM.

FoxRacR17 - the answer to your question is above. basically, you are shooting the LED ligth through a clear needle, and there is nothing to "catch" the light and make it visible to you.

hope that makes sense boys....

 

thanks, so the sanding is a go

 

How do you take the old LEDs off the board? and i know there are different types of solder, what kind should I use?

 

Just did my cluster to blue,so sweet ,clock is next,cant wait.

 

I think it should be an option from the factory when you buy your truck! Be able to pick the color of your dash lights! its the little things

 

I think you misunderstood. I did paint the back of my needle white so that it shows up better with my white leds, but thats now what the issue is that I'm having. I made a picture with the two dashes, the one from the first post is in the top left corner, and my dash is the larger one, what i'm talking about I circled in red.

 

LEDs only work one way. If you put it in backwards you wouldn't get any light. I don't know what is causing that problem. I would think that the lighter color blue would show the red better than the dark blue but apparently I'm wrong about that.

 

Ive found that the corner of the LED with the notch in it matches up with the white dot on the circuit board. so maybe check to see if thats correct on yours

 

a soldiering iron and soldier wick. use soldier made for circuit boards, the very thin stuff at radio shack.

 

sorry, i did misunderstand. now that i see pics, that is extremely weird....did you mess around with anything around there? i cant think of any reason that the red would not light up?? sorry im not more help than that. the only thing i can think to do is take it apart again and see if its see through a at least a little and make sure its not being blocked by anything.??

 

No problem yosh, thanks for trying to help anyways. Yeah I figured thats what I would have to do. I completely forgot that I wanted to take out the led for the TPMS since I wont be replacing them when I get new rims and tires. So I figure I will check things out when I take it apart again to do that when I get my new tires and rims. Hopefully I will remember to post back in this thread with my findings so people will know in the future.

 

My spedometer isnt lighting up, should I try to resolder the LEDs or are they bad? Same with my RPM gauge. But the other parts light up.

 

did you make sure they arent soldered the wrong way? These LEDs only let current flow one way, if they are soldered in backwards they wont light up.

 

Yeah I fixed that, but now my spedometer and other gauges arent zeroing out, they continue to move below 0 and so forth, how do I stop this it is driving me crazy.