I think you can dim LEDs. If not then how would it work in other cars that use LED lights stock?

Im going to do something close to this as soon as I get home and have time to get in tuch with BlackCattCustoms about my new gauges face.

Its still in the works. I have been stuck in south Cala for 4 days and just now got to Ohio. I should be home later this week.

Later.

 

The LEDs can dim. The dimmer switch is basically a potentiometer (variable resistor) which controls how much power is delivered to the LEDs. The Lower you turn the knob the more resistance is inflicted to the circuit causing less power to goto the lights which in return makes them dimmer and vise versa to make them brighter.

 

Is that a traction control off button light?

 

Thanks, that makes sense...

 

Damn those gauges look sweet! Keep up the great work!

 

As long as you dont overpower a led you should be fine . The 12 volt power supply Im using to test these , gradually cuts voltage when u turn it off . The LED's dim just fine . The situation where you run into a problem , is with turn signals . When a LED is already lit for say a turn signal or brake light , add a traditional blinker in the mix ....the LED wont flash correctly . Thats a situation where you need to wire in a amplifier ( I think thats what its called , correct me if Im wrong ...my memory is foggy ) to allow the lit up LED to blink correctly .

About the function of the lights .....I would love to have them just come on with the factory lights . There is no illumination wire in the harness to the cluster though as the dash lights are controlled by the BCM . At a later time , I will try to solder power and ground wires in place of the old surface mount incandesnts on the circuit board with one of the gauges and splice in a 2 pin harness connector and see it that gets it done . It should .....right now I jus wanna finish this up and be done with electronics for awhile and get back to power mods

Thanks again for the compliments

 

just curious what did you uses for that housing for the LEDs and wiring?

 

sweet job. let us know when u make kits. i want the whole interior gauges done. get working lol

 

did you ever finish this dude?

 

Yeah , I did . But I in no way shape or form have had the time to make them into a kit like I said I was gonna work on .

Here was the final pics .

 

wow, that looks great

 

Nice job man, im going to do this sometime this weekend

 

damn thats pimp... too bad about the kit thing... and i just realized this thread is sorta old any chance of a kit now?

 

looks great

so there was no way of making the DIC light up red?

 

That looks great...good job!

Are you still going to try the red on the information area or are you just going to leave it as it is?

 

Awesome!

 

Those things look amazing--I wish someone would come out with a kit for this or plug-and-play cluster (maybe with core swap), a red DIC would be kickass.

 

^ agreed - I've been looking around for so long... wonder if one of the vendors is willing to take on an additional project? *nudge nudge*

Either way they look great, really good job on this project. its definately something I've been wanting to do.

 

Has anyone thought of using the RED DIC panel from the pontiacs, isn't theirs red? Just a question really don't know!

 

The colors they have these in are ...Green=saab , white=pontiac for the solstice only , the G5 uses the chevy dic , Saturn=amber , and chevy= 1982 style digital green

I tried to add a clear red filter over the clear panel( its actually tinted blue slightly) in the gauge face . It looked good at night , but it totally washed out during the day . Red is very hard color to filter , it blocks alot of light . And you need a heavy red toned transparent filter to cover up the digital green color .

Swapping out the DIC could be done , but you better have a solder sucker and one tiny ass solder gun . The pins on the circuit board are VERY close together and very small . I havent exactly been looking , but if I see a solstice cluster for cheap I do plan on picking one up and attempting the swap on my spare cluster . All the info is stored in the BCM , so Im pretty sure all these colored DIC's are the same except for the color they are .

Thanks for the compliments , I totally forgot about this thread , hehe . I will have more free time this winter . I may start doing it on an exhange basis , as theres a bit more involed than just adding the leds . One good thing though is all the info is stored in your bcm , so any cluster for any given model is interchangeable with the same model and your correct DIC info and mileage will display . So u could use a spare cluster and just swap out when its done .

 

If you decide to, let me know--I'd love to have something like this and keep my stock cluster (but send you a fresh one out of the box to modify) as a backup

 

I wonder what this would do with my cluster....i have the white faces :S

 

if you want it to be controled by the DIMMER use pin number 8 its the instrument supply voltage

the color of the wire should be grey or to locate the pin on the 16 pin plug is if u have the hook that holds the wire facing up and the plug facing you it should be the top left pin

the ground is pin number 16 color is black

not black and white that is the signal ground

if you dont under stand send me a pm or a message on aim and i can help you out

 

Good info on the wires , thanx .

On mine I tied into the light wire and ground wire to the boost guage , they will work off the dimmer that way too . Less wire to run your way though .

 

we have red lighting on the gauges but the same DIC as the Cobalts