Finished this up today and got it installed and OMG what a difference . Definately worth the pita it was to get it figured out . Its not blinding at all ...bright , but no brighter than a stock Audi white LED cluster .

Stock


The comparison


Heres where I put em


Same above lit up


Eat your heart out Magyver ....pcv tube , paper clip and expoxy


...and in the car

 

amazing! nije job man

 

Thats sweet i want blue...... Are the pvc pieces red leds?

 

sweet

 

i'm impressed, great job man, i love the look

BTW - You need gas

 

Looks really good, not too showy at all.

 

Thanks for the comments

shortyhend2004 - The fuel guage , it is a pcv pipe . I drilled tiny holes to pass the legs of the LED's thru . Had to do something to isolate the red led's for the needles and white . I posted ya a pic of blue . Its what my buddies cluster will look like in his SS . I had some transparent blue vinyl I layed over the back of my cluster before I final installed it . Its alot bluer than the pic suggests ....no matter how much I adjusted my camera , it was not liking the blue at all , so it looks a little washed out .

 

wait a sec.. off topic but dont you have an 05? i see you have the 05 steering wheel with the 07 radio? i thought the 07 radio didnt work on the 06s

gauges look great btw

 

Dude, that is amazing. Beautiful job. Now you make me want to rip my dash out. Good thing I don't know too much about leds or I would be starting this project right away.

 

he did a swap....he wrote up a thread for that too.

 

So you are gonna do a write up in a How-To right??

 

That is awesome I need another cluster to destroy now haha. I cant go without mine hehe its my DD. Now how hard was this to actually do? I mean that looks killer an the blue looks awesome and I would use blue leds an I assume it would be the same affect? Also where are you at in Ind.? Im in ohio and know that a few IN. people came here for a meet?

Also the needles are orange stock right? Did you add more lights to the needles?

 

how bright are they at night, can you dim them at all?

 

that looks awesome

 

I ended up wiring the LED's into the boost guage ( grey wire + / Black/white wire - ) so they come on like the normal lights and yes I can dim them . When not dimmed their the same intensity as many other factory cars that have white LED clusters ( Accord , Cadillac's , Audi's ect ect ) .

WickedSS2005 - Im going to do a write on the next version . Im gonna simplify all down to simple circuit board that attaches to the bezel and Im gonna use pogo pegs to get power and ground off the stock bulb location . complete plug and play . The way I did this version would be a bit complicated to lay out . If anyone wants more info on how I did this I will post some though .

shortyhend2004- Thats what I did was use a spare cluster I got cheap . Keep in mind if u use Blue LED's , the red portions will not illuminate correctly . It will light up the red parts Purple . I used red LED's to light the needles . .........Im up in south Bend . Where were the guys from in Indiana ?

Thanks again for the compliments

 

OK well lil strips of vinyl over the numbers? I do window tinting and we have some blue clear in stock hehe. Did you take the needles off to do it or not?

 

Looks awesome! But i would have blacked out the km/h while you were at it.

 

great work! looking forward to the how-to hopefully its not too hard.

 

Yeah , the blue was just clear blue vinyl I layed over the back . Yes , the needles were off and entire cluster had to be disassembled to do this . It easier than it seems though . The Cobalt cluster uses stepper motors to operate the needles ...unlike that old style air cores that were complicated to re-calibrate because there was no stopping point . The stepper motors 0 out , when u turn the needles manually slightly past 0 mph , 0 rpm or empty fuel they stop and u cant turn them any further . You will need to adjust them slightly...like a few mm or less . Its asy though , when u turn the ignition on speedo and tach go to 0 mph and 0 rpm and fuel goes to where it was . So just fine tune until u get the tach and speedo to 0 and the fuel to where it was . Take a clear pic of your cluster before you remove it with the ignition on but the engine not running . As far as taking out the needles , u just pull up gently on them ....they will pull right off .

 

now did you use parts of the cluster or can one i take apart swap in without taking 2 of them apart? Will the other cluster jus swap in or wat?

 

There are 1/2 moon shaped holes in the white shroud , thats where I put the pieces I mounted the leds to . I have to completely dissemble the cluster to do what I did . I've thought of a much easier way to do this though thats less complex using a circuit board and NO external wires , thats why I wanna hold off on how to . A friend of mine locally is trying something too using small led strips that looked like it will work out pretty good . They were blue LED's , the only prob is the red parts of the cluster were lighting up purple . He just placed the strips behind the guages and ran the wiring thru holes in the cluster housing .

 

Ok next question would you do it again? As in anyway i could get you a cluster an you do it?

 

Looks great!