Gauge Cluster Color Change: LED's and Gels - Page 17

Mechie3 · 09-15-2009, 10:11 AM

Yeah, just put some smoke tint in front of the gauge face. Only downsides are: potential for th needle to snag and the lights must be on to see the gauges at all. Alternatively, you could try using a VHT smoke paint. Not sure how well either will really work.

je255j · 09-15-2009, 02:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ProDriven Auto

Just a couple of months ago we did GC8 Cluster in Hyper White. Came out GREAT.

MAN, that looks good! I can't wait until you're able to do that to my '09 OBS.

Interior Flair · 09-17-2009, 12:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mechie3

Blue is pretty much a no go. It will always come out looking teal.***********

Not necessarily true. If you add enough intense blue lighting it will eliminate the teal affect.

That is why our blue 05-07 climate control conversions are $65. We add two more LEDs per knob for a total of 5 super bright LEDs per knob. The result is pretty good:

DerickRyoung · 10-07-2009, 12:20 PM

all of these pictures show the check engine light and others...is this b/c the cars are not on or are all of the lights on all the time??? Just curious...I was hoping all of the cars are turned off? I am really interested in this mod...

boostin23 · 10-20-2009, 06:42 PM

i sifted through the first 3 or 4 pages... did anyone do a STi cluster? Ive got an 05 STi cluster and think i want to turn it blue and put it on my 03 wrx

Mechie3 · 10-21-2009, 03:21 PM

CEL is because key is in, car is off.

I have not done an STI, not sure if the pro's have. It's a bit different stock setup.

Spliffnugz · 11-05-2009, 01:24 PM

you still doin these for people? If so how fast and how much can you get it done for?

Exarch · 11-07-2009, 03:32 AM

For what it's worth, I had the blinking/dead LED problem in my cluster.

I deviated from the DIY in terms of LED's, I picked up Digikey part number 67-1691-ND. These LEDs are made by Lumex and are terrifically bright at 3500 mcd. They have a 3.4v voltage drop, so when working with series circuits containing four of these, they can be hooked up to the car's power with no risk of cooking them.

Fast forward a bit, the LED's worked fine for a while, but eventually one of the circuits began blinking with the blink slowing over the course of a few days to the point at which it was dead entirely.

Removal showed that the third LED of each circuit appeared burnt with the visible light-emitting medium taking on a brown tinge. Testing showed that the burnt looking LED would blink with power applied, but the rest were fine.

To combat this, I threw two 1000 micro-ferad capacitors in series to provide some AC filtering, noise filtering, and general power smoothing.

I replaced the burnt LEDs on all of the circuits, and have been running the lighting now for several hours a week of driving with the power filtering capacitors in place with no problems.

I will make a rough sketch of my circuit and throw it up as it's easier to see. At some point I will also upload the pictures of my build and post them here.

Color wise, I started out with a VW-esque 485nm light filtered using Rosco 2008 gel. One layer of the gel was insufficient to give it the right deep color, so I doubled up. The problem with the gel only having 7% light transmission compounded nicely to leave me with some very hot-spotted gauges. In addition, the Rosco 26 light red I had picked out for the redline was problematic. Not in color, the color came out perfectly, however from certain angles, the light would appear to "bleed" between the numbers and the red-colored hash marks. This was unacceptable, I would rather have a purple redline than a red one with purple bleed.

I was going to trim so that the tach's numbers past the redline would have red gel behind them, but figured that would compound things as the numbers and the red-line itself would be two different colors.

Instead of continuing to cut out endless sets of gels for the cluster, I caved and threw in forms cut from Rosco 121 diffuse blue, which is a diffused blue sheet of slight rough texture, and is incidentally a perfect color match for the blue of my Alpine iDA-200 media deck.

For the LCD screens, I flexed the screen away from the housing and yanked the green plastic filters, replacing them with similar size pieces of Rosco 120 red diffusion gel. I cut the gel slightly larger than the recovered piece of green plastic to help it sit flat against the back of the LCD. After a good bit of fighting with them with the LCD's flexed forward away from their housings, I finally got them to lay flat...

Last but not least, I used one of the sample gels from the Rosco gel swatch book to find a pink that roughly mimics the STi pink on the STi cluster, and placed that behind the "IMPREZA" at the bottom of the tach.

So far so good, I should really get some pictures of it in action!

Next up will be the HVAC controls by somehow cavorting flat gel into a suitable bulb condom...

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09-15-2009, 10:11 AM	#401
Mechie3 Scooby Guru Member#: 120152 Join Date: Jul 2006 Chapter/Region: MWSOC Location: Indy Vehicle: 2006 WRX, ESP 92 CNY Overall Pax Winner!	Yeah, just put some smoke tint in front of the gauge face. Only downsides are: potential for th needle to snag and the lights must be on to see the gauges at all. Alternatively, you could try using a VHT smoke paint. Not sure how well either will really work.

10-07-2009, 12:20 PM	#404
DerickRyoung Scooby Newbie Member#: 178050 Join Date: Apr 2008 Chapter/Region: MWSOC Location: South Bend, IN Vehicle: 02 wrx psm	all of these pictures show the check engine light and others...is this b/c the cars are not on or are all of the lights on all the time??? Just curious...I was hoping all of the cars are turned off? I am really interested in this mod...

10-20-2009, 06:42 PM	#405
boostin23 Scooby Newbie Member#: 204172 Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Around CA Vehicle: ---- WrX	i sifted through the first 3 or 4 pages... did anyone do a STi cluster? Ive got an 05 STi cluster and think i want to turn it blue and put it on my 03 wrx

10-21-2009, 03:21 PM	#406
Mechie3 Scooby Guru Member#: 120152 Join Date: Jul 2006 Chapter/Region: MWSOC Location: Indy Vehicle: 2006 WRX, ESP 92 CNY Overall Pax Winner!	CEL is because key is in, car is off. I have not done an STI, not sure if the pro's have. It's a bit different stock setup.

11-05-2009, 01:24 PM	#407
Spliffnugz Scooby Newbie Member#: 224514 Join Date: Sep 2009 Chapter/Region: South East Location: Pawleys Island , SC Vehicle: 2007 Impreza 2.5i Urban Grey	you still doin these for people? If so how fast and how much can you get it done for?

11-07-2009, 03:32 AM	#408
Exarch Scooby Newbie Member#: 208321 Join Date: Apr 2009 Chapter/Region: RMIC Location: Colorado Springs, CO Vehicle: 2007 WRX TR WRB	For what it's worth, I had the blinking/dead LED problem in my cluster. I deviated from the DIY in terms of LED's, I picked up Digikey part number 67-1691-ND. These LEDs are made by Lumex and are terrifically bright at 3500 mcd. They have a 3.4v voltage drop, so when working with series circuits containing four of these, they can be hooked up to the car's power with no risk of cooking them. Fast forward a bit, the LED's worked fine for a while, but eventually one of the circuits began blinking with the blink slowing over the course of a few days to the point at which it was dead entirely. Removal showed that the third LED of each circuit appeared burnt with the visible light-emitting medium taking on a brown tinge. Testing showed that the burnt looking LED would blink with power applied, but the rest were fine. To combat this, I threw two 1000 micro-ferad capacitors in series to provide some AC filtering, noise filtering, and general power smoothing. I replaced the burnt LEDs on all of the circuits, and have been running the lighting now for several hours a week of driving with the power filtering capacitors in place with no problems. I will make a rough sketch of my circuit and throw it up as it's easier to see. At some point I will also upload the pictures of my build and post them here. Color wise, I started out with a VW-esque 485nm light filtered using Rosco 2008 gel. One layer of the gel was insufficient to give it the right deep color, so I doubled up. The problem with the gel only having 7% light transmission compounded nicely to leave me with some very hot-spotted gauges. In addition, the Rosco 26 light red I had picked out for the redline was problematic. Not in color, the color came out perfectly, however from certain angles, the light would appear to "bleed" between the numbers and the red-colored hash marks. This was unacceptable, I would rather have a purple redline than a red one with purple bleed. I was going to trim so that the tach's numbers past the redline would have red gel behind them, but figured that would compound things as the numbers and the red-line itself would be two different colors. Instead of continuing to cut out endless sets of gels for the cluster, I caved and threw in forms cut from Rosco 121 diffuse blue, which is a diffused blue sheet of slight rough texture, and is incidentally a perfect color match for the blue of my Alpine iDA-200 media deck. For the LCD screens, I flexed the screen away from the housing and yanked the green plastic filters, replacing them with similar size pieces of Rosco 120 red diffusion gel. I cut the gel slightly larger than the recovered piece of green plastic to help it sit flat against the back of the LCD. After a good bit of fighting with them with the LCD's flexed forward away from their housings, I finally got them to lay flat... Last but not least, I used one of the sample gels from the Rosco gel swatch book to find a pink that roughly mimics the STi pink on the STi cluster, and placed that behind the "IMPREZA" at the bottom of the tach. So far so good, I should really get some pictures of it in action! Next up will be the HVAC controls by somehow cavorting flat gel into a suitable bulb condom...