How To: Change Your Climate Controls BLUE

NIGHT SHOTS COMING!!!

This took me 30 min to figure out and install so I would expect that as a reasonable time for you as well. This is really very simple and should be an easy little project. Do not attempt this if you don't have any experience soldering or aren't comfortable soldering parts on of your baby.

Materials:
2 wide angle 12v LEDs- Wide angle is definately a plus here.
2 1/4' flush mount LED holders from Radio Shack
Soldering iron and solder
Flat head+ Phillips Screw drivers

Here is a photo of the flush mounts, you may have these lying around from the cup-holder LED mod. To the right is one of the bulbs you are replacing



If you are doing this you likely already know how to remove your climate controls. Just in case you forgot here are a set of good directions stolen from 007Tacoma.

Now tear the whole thing appart until you get to the board. Take care when removing the speed selector, there is a little spring loaded ball you don't want to loose.

You will see that there are 4 lights, two small (2mm?) leds and 2 bigger lights on brown bases. The leds go to the buttons, swapping these is a no-brainer.

Here is a crappy photo, the light on the left has been replaced already.



To remove the two backlights is simple, they pop out with a 1/4 twist. Replace them with the LED mounts by pushing them in from the front and insert the LEDs from the back.

Bend the LED leads as flat as you can and solder them into the connections to the old lights as shown. Again, not a great pic, camera was almost dead.



Check that they are working by plugging the harness back into the truck and then reassemble.

Enjoy.

 

What about the painted on orange film on the controls? Even though you changed the incandescent bulb won't it still light up orange?

 

Nope this came from another member, derrick I think, who made this work. The orange will dim the lights, but they will still be blue if they are two dark for you then just drill a 1/4" hole and add an LED as needed.

Edit: here is the photo that got me started.
http://www.tacomaworld.com/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/66720

 

....skeptical, still think it shows orange unless I am missing something?

Pictures will help

 

Not super bright, also not orange, I might add a few more LEDs in if I get bold enough.

 

hmmm, like them to be a little brighter but they're definitely not orange good job, what about the clock?

 

doesnt even look like the are lit?! have any better shots?

 

I am lacking the materials at the moment to do the clock. I forgot to grab my dremmel whenI left for the summer. The way that is done is by using a polishing wheel to remove the organge paint from the back then applying a blue filter.

Their lit, just dim. I'm a bit dissapointed, but I have time today to try and get them brighter. As said though, one solution would be to find places to drill into the board to mount more LEDs. The stock location is between the tops of the dials, which makes no sense and isn't ideal.

 

Finally had a few hours to play with this more to try and amplify light output

I started by taking the more is more approach and blasted the hell out of the display by dramaticly increasing the amount of light. This was done by adding more LEDs and reinstalling the stock bulbs with a coat of blue sharpie.

Here is what the board looks like now:





Popped it back together for a test run and got this:







Now matter how much blue light I am still getting stuck on the orange in the plastic.



New thought- What would happen if I sharpied the back of all the parts I want blue?



Now we are getting somewhere!!!

I need to find a fine blue sharpie and then the next time I get a chance I think I can finish the mod. You can tell exactly how much I was able to reach in 5 min with the monster sharpie I had at hand.

I would be really interested to see if all it would take is someone hitting the backs with a sharpie to get the color change. Anyone? Its totally reverseable if you don't like the results.

 

very good work!

 

Thanks!

LEDs are on the way to change the button color, looks like this is how it will stay until I am ready to drop them in. Till then I have to find a fine sharpie...

 

OK I have custom red arrays in mine. I will have to make some custom blue arrays tomorrow and see how it turns out. I also already have the LEDs for the buttons.

Once i get mine done.. I will research a good way to make it reproducable and will start offering the service.

 

do you have any pics of the red ones? also w/ the red LEDs in there for the buttons?

 

Think for red its just a matter of adding red light since that is close enough to orange.

 

In case anyone is wondering why they don't turn out orange because of the orange tint on the plastics, it is because LEDs only produce one frequency of light. The tinting on the plastic allows orange to pass but dims other colors. Since the LEDs are only producing blue, there's no orange light to pass and the blue is dimmed.

 

Right, thus we are dramacily increasing the amount of light being blasted against the back of the display (to the verge of being blinding) to get an OEM amount of light out the transperent plastic.

 

Im gonna have to give this a go on my dash....

 

I messed around a bit with this and didnt like how dim it was... I will see what else i can come up with when i have the time.