How will you cover up the factory bulbs w/o creating a fire hazard? Do they not get very hot? I'm functionally retarded when it comes to electronics and lighting...

 

thats easy.. turn off your auto lights, and put the light switch on all the way. boom! your car thinks its night, and they come on

x2 you better do it with rubber or something. i would hate to see an ss s/c go up in flames. especially with you in it

 

only thing i can think of would be electrical tape and even at that its kind of risky. I would try and remove them and figure out the resistance of them and then put a resister of the same value in its place. Just in case the new LEDs take more power or something so that way you dont mess anything up. Also if you are not replacing the stock LEDs then where are you getting the power from for them.

 

Keep us updated. I want all Red Gauges.

 

 

Im gonna tap into the sunroof fuse with a "add a circuit" which is one of the few switched 12 volt sources in the car . When the ign, is turned on ...cluster lights come on . No switches to mess with You can use the cluster for a power source to my knowledge , the GMLAN wire controls the lights among many other things ...there is no single separate wire for the lighting .

Those bulbs are tiny , they get hot ...but not that hot . I figure that out when I do the red LED's for the needles . Im not working on it at all this weekend though , so dont look for any updates there until next week .

I was gonna upload pics to show how I mounted them , but Im having problems with my camara software ...I dont feel like killing my firday night figuring it out . I will upload em tomorrow .

SSnipes - If youve ever sat in a Lexus or any other car that used White LED guages , there no brighter than that . There exactly the same in intensity . Much brighter than stock , but in no way blinding . The camera makes them look a little more intense than they really are .

 

just wondering that if you could use the ss gauge overlay on a ls and if you can where can i get one or do you know if anyone is selling one

 

It would physically fit , but since the needle sweep isnt calibrated for the speedo and tach ....it would give correct readings . The fuel gauge would read right

Heres the pic requests . I will be doing this over . After messing with these harnesses , and educating myself on how to wire leds up ect I know exactly how Im gonna do it over . The place locally I got the LEDs from really wanted to make me resistored harnesses with leads to hook up to 12volt since I didnt know much bout leds , so he did me 2 with9 leds and 1 with 6 for 20 bux . Im pretty meticulous with wiring and electronics so Im a lil embarassed to post pics because what I originally did worked very good , But it looks like a hack job and the vinyl will likely not hold in the long run The new way Im gonna do it is perimeter the edge of 1/2 moon holes in the center of the tach and speedo . Im gonna drill tiny holes just big enuff to pass the legs of the leds thru , aim them all accordingly and epoxy them in then wire from underneath .

Anyways ....the massacre

 

Looking great so far, can't wait to see the finished product. Definately looking forward to seeing a how to on this one.

Or maybe you're looking to make some side cash, and I order a new cluster and send it to you to do? Ah, the convenience of cash. I love capitalism. :

 

Ok , now that educated myself further with LED's , I re-did that mess I had going on before . Removed all the LED's and resistors from the harness , made something to mount them singley on , and wired from underneath .



Now were getting somewhere


Got the needle lit up now

Now I jus gotta wire the rest up the new way

 

that is awsome looking

 

any plans on selling a "kit"? just like the LED cluster?

 

Thats a possiblity . Once I get the entire cluster in the car , and running for a bit . IF I sold something like this , I would definately need to make the wiring yet more compact on the underside and probably seal it off ... so youd just have the little 1/2 circle with a pigtail coming out of it to connect to 12v . Without alot of explanation , in short ....If I can make it easy enuff for complete retard to install I will probably do it Not alot of people know too much about wiring and stuff , so to sell ...it would have to EASY to install , and 100% foolproof reliable .

Doing a friends SS after mine . Were keeping the blue silkscreen on the backside of the stock cluster , so his will light bright blue to match his Blue Aeroforce gauge .

 

awesome job.. looks great.. i like how the needle lights up from orange out to red.. i think if i was to do mine i would do it red like the pontiac gauges

 

Thanks

Actually thats just my camera . I tried to adjust , but couldnt get the odd glare at the base of the needle out . The needle is all 100% red . In person ...its a tick brighter at the base , but nowhere near as dramatic as the pic would make u think

 

it just seems like it would make the cluster look way more upscale. kind of like what is in audi's

 

It does , hehehe . A friend of mine has a 03 A6 , and another's got a 04 lex LS430 . The lighting is 100% identical .

 

very nice sir

 

I love that needle. The only thing I don't like about this project is having to wire it into a seperate 12V source and not being able to tap into the cluster for the power and have it light up only when its dark out.

 

Totally dawsome.... lol. Looks sweet, cant wait to see the final gauge...

later

 

I agree, looks amazing, just wish it could maintain stock functionality...

 

You could tap stock power, he just wanted it lit up all the time. There is also a factory bulletin about reflashing the bcm to make the dash lights stay on all the time. Enough people complained that GM made it an acceptable process. Just go in complaining that you can barely see the guages during the day. The bulletin reccommends that the dealer reprogram the bcm to make the dash lights stay on all the time.

 

I could care less about when the lights are on. I'm more concerned with being able to dim the lights accordingly for different lighting situations...

 

If you did what i said, your factory dimmer would still function. I don't know how the leds would react to that though, I thought that leds were either on or off. But I don't know too much about that stuff.

 

Neither do I. That's why I brought it up.