Meso customs volume button relocation

The underside of both the OEM and MESO switch have (for lack of a better word) "dividers" that looked like they could prevent light from flowing freely behind the switch. I trimmed all four of those back as best I could and it made no difference. I tried fitting it without the rubber membrane to see if that was reducing available light; no difference. I did notice with the assembly half apart that if you push the Speaker + button to its extreme, the lighting improves, which tells the light just isn't making it to the part of the switch that it needs to get to. Brighter LEDs would probably throw the brightness out of whack compared to the rest of the backlighting. An additional LED properly placed would work but could be quite a project. Mine is back together for now so I cannot test further, but I wonder... there's that white plastic ring that needs removed from the old switch to the new one, on two sides of that there are plastic tabs that stick out. Those tabs are on the Speaker+ and Speaker- sides of the switch. I wonder if those tabs could be blocking the light from getting where it needs to be, because when I pushed that upper switch forward, which would be away from that plastic tab, it lit up fine. The OEM switch icons were smaller and did not need light that close to the center of the switch where those tabs are located. You can see in the pics we are all posting that the Speaker - switch is darker toward the center of the switch, too, just not as much, but that would be where the other plastic tab would be. If anyone can confirm that theory we might be onto something, if not I will pull mine back apart tomorrow to look more closely.

 

The LEDs are recessed in the PCB. The OEM green PCB is translucent and disperses light to make it less directional. Perhaps a light dispersing plastic dome over the LED hole would help disperse the light?

 

This is some true gold here. Can’t wait til Friday.

 

Hey man, this is science!

I did do some experimenting. The pictures don’t really do it justice, but I’ll try to describe what I saw as well.
1st is stock PCB board, Meso buttons. It did have a darker gradient toward the bottom. Noticeable, but nothing so bad I wouldn’t be able to live with it (like I said, the pics don’t tell the best story here).

2nd we have stock board, stock buttons. The light is really even. Looks good.

3rd is the Meso PCB with stock buttons. Still real even. Looks good. At this point, I should mention that comparing the PCBs without anything else, the Meso board is noticeably brighter than the OEM one. It is more white, but definitely brighter to the eye.

4th came the Meso board with Meso buttons. The dark gradient is still noticeable. Not too different from the 1st combo, but it actually doesn’t seem as bright in person. Not terrible, but even comparing it to the right side controls, it seemed dimmer. I was surprised by that as the Meso LEDs are brighter. Maybe it is the way they are set in? But I couldn’t really see a difference.

Then I thought some about the light diffusion, and the over spray. So I took an x-acto knife and scraped it around the volume + area. That actually helped reduce the gradient, but didn’t eliminate it. I also noticed at this time that if you shine a light from the front and look at the back of the buttons, the volume + is not very defined. The volume - is much clearer. Just an observation.

Then I was going to put it back together, and noticed the rubber pad that sits between the buttons and the PCB. One is noticeably darker. The grey itself is darker, and it doesn’t pass as much light through over all.

So I swapped those out, and got what I feel is a good result. Still a very small gradient toward the very bottom of the speaker icon, but not noticeable unless you’re really looking for that. Overall the brightness was noticeably different.

It can really be seen by the glare coming off it here. It’s most noticeable when I tried to block the gauges to get a better focus.

The volume + is still the darkest of the buttons, but minimally so. It is lit up more evenly over all. Looks good IMO. That last picture is the stock PCB, lighter grey pad, and scraped Meso buttons. Unfortunately not people may not have a spare steering wheel to Frankenstein this together.

 

Interesting find! I wondered if there was some sort of overspray on the back of meso button, that didn't allow the light to shine through as well. But now that im thinking a out it, maybe its the design of the led in general. In the normal configuration the track up button needs most of its light focused toward the top of the arrow shape, where as the volume up needs light focused towards the top and bottom. Maybe the led is designed to only focus on the upper half leading to the lower half not getting the light it needs with the meso upgrade

 

I don’t know that the overspray really affected the light coming through, I was thinking it might just help reflect it better as the plastic is white and should reflect a little more? Scraping it didn’t change the light coming through when set on the flash light.

 

I love it.
I was trying to scrape the button off earlier in hopes it was a reflection thing too, but my button doesn’t seem to have quite the problem as the op
And yes none of us have the steering wheel and thought process to do what you did.
Love it.

 

The timing just lined up nicley for me. Found a good used leather wheel on eBay (I have the SR, so no leather for me) and then Meso released the fix, so I had to take it all apart anyway and has the spare parts. Also, I hadn't tightened the airbag or replaced the side panels on the wheel yet because I wanted to make sure it was straight. So everything just lined up nicely. Wish I could get more accurate pictures though. I wonder if the dark vs light grey pad helps in your case? It seemed to make the biggest overall difference for me. That could be why some people seem to have it worse?

 

When my brightness is up I can see it all fine, when I turn the brightness down (where it usually is while driving at night) the volume symbol goes away but the plus is there.

 

I had no idea the steering wheel had lights. I drive about 50% a night too

 

Does it have to do with the height of the "volume +" symbol vs the original "advance" symbol? The location of the LEDs may have been optimized to illuminate the smaller arrow and now the light doesn't quite reach the bottom of the taller "volume +". Might explain the gradient from top to bottom.

 

Benny, JFC, I’m going to give you a bicycle for your commute.

 

Oh stop making sense...

 

we are looking into this issue and trying to find a solution.

 

Great! Is the product sold out? Or, did you pull it off the market?

 

Wanted to sneak it in before Friday

 

Did the lighter pad come out of the SR wheel or the leather one?

 

The SR one. I don’t know if it makes a difference on year, but my SR is a 2019. Also, the plug on the board was the larger style. If you look at the adapter Meso provides, you’ll see what I’m talking about. Both pads had the same markings as well, not a part number though.

EDIT: I don’t know what year the leather steering wheel came out of, sorry

EDIT 2: the listing on eBay said 2016-2020. Looking at the wheel, I am guessing pre-2019? It doesn’t have the two little buttons below the controls on the right side. My SR has those, so I am assuming they became standard by 2019?

 

I have 4 bikes. It takes a solid 12 minutes to bike to work.

 

Every sr is gonna be missing a steering wheel now.