Interior lights and cluster LED "LOTS OF PICTURES!"

sweet - i always consider doing this as well - great work

Finished Converting
HVAC panel: Has 29x mixed amber and green PLCC2 LEDs - Replaced 20x white PLCC2 LEDs
Light Control Module: Has 6x amber PLCC2 LEDs, 1x amber 3mm LED - Replaced 6x white PLCC2 LEDs, 1x white 3mm LED
Window switches with window lock button: Has 5x amber 3mm LEDs - Replaced 5x white 3mm LEDs

Still need to do:
Factory business CD player: Has 40x 0805 LEDs - Need 40x white 0805 LEDs
DSC/Harman Kardon/Hill-Assist
Cluster
Door Lock/Hazard Button
Steering wheel controls
Overhead mood lights/sunroof button
Ashtray lights (these don't seem to be easy to replace...)

you guys scare the **** out of me

Wanna see scary? Here's what you are faced with if you decide to change the factory radio LEDs:



Close up of the LEDs:



Lets get CLOSER:



Compared to the PLCC2 LEDs of the cluster/HVAC

Originally Posted by infinite012

Wanna see scary? Here's what you are faced with if you decide to change the factory radio LEDs:



Close up of the LEDs:



Lets get CLOSER:



Compared to the PLCC2 LEDs of the cluster/HVAC

congratulations i miss my 40 0805 LED's for my cd player i want so badly that one blue to.. but keep up the good work man !! By the way.. was your LCD soldered on the backside ? on those clips going trough the SMD card ?

and.. the ashtray lights is easy. when you get them out from the ashtray. Just simple drag out the whole led with resistors and stuff from the side you see the 2 connector pins... its hard to explain. but you will figure it out. you might have to use a bit of force to get them out. you can use a plier between the 2 connector pins on the little "smd" board and pull.. When you get them out. cut off the old ones and solder on some new

Yeah, it was soldered. I used a desoldering braid to get the solder off of the two twist clip things and kind of forced it off the PCB. I need to order the LEDs for the CD player and steering wheel buttons.

The ashtray lights seem a bit impossible for me. idk, I'll try again later. Gonna start on the cluster tonight (hopefully). Kinda tired. The interior of the car looks like I was robbed.

I also noticed that on the LCM, the PLCC2 LEDs look a bit yellow compared to the 3mm of the fog light button and the PLCC2 on the HVAC controls. I think there is a filter of some sort on the LCM faceplate. Makes me sad.

EDIT: The "filter" on the LCM is actually the plastic. It has a yellowish tinge to it and is thick, so the LEDs don't shine as brightly through it while being slightly off color.

The cluster is done, though. I finished the LED swap in about an hour and a half (or however long Megamind is). For the LCDs, I doubled up on cut printer paper (fold paper in half, cut at the crease = double layer of paper) and replaced the white/orange gel with the paper. Hooray for autotragic because I had to do this twice.

Reminding myself to remember which way the LEDs point


Finished




Not so finished


Thanks for this thread and the other one in the DIY section for giving me motivation to tear apart the car!

Nice work =) i'm proud of you.. i think that you lcd in the cluster show's the numbers better than mine, maybe i should try using 2 layers of paper in the back of the LCD. have you used white led's in the back of the LCD or ? what ? since your background color is blue.

Yep, white LEDs. Everything I circled in the picture of the PCB was replaced with white LEDs.

Originally Posted by kneescrap

I am just tired of that colour

Trust me the red light is easier on the eyes during long haul driving. If you've ever spent 7+ hours driving at night non stop I would take the red over anything (I mean I think the blue and white lights look nice but they start to hurt your eyes after a while at least for me).

I'm not a fan of the amber/red. My eyes don't pick it up well at night (I guess that's sort of a good thing, less fatigue). But seeing as how I'm not really doing too much night time driving (at most I'll spend maybe 3 hours on a dark highway traveling from Richmond, VA to DC), the white is much more pleasing than the amber/red.

Edit: Just ordered 100x white 0805 LEDs. Now I wait for these things to ship from Hong Kong...

Originally Posted by infinite012

Yep, white LEDs. Everything I circled in the picture of the PCB was replaced with white LEDs.

hmm strange that the background colour is so blu i will try tomorrow with another layer of paper behind my LCD. maybe it would be a bit brither.

today i have just spent 4 hours to get some lights in the rear window switches !!! this is the result... much job.. but i think it was worth it

Question: Does all LEDS (3mm & 5mm) have to be soldered with a resistor?

And if so, does that make it more difficult? My LEDs should be coming in this week(hopefully).

I'm ready to get started!!!

All you're doing is replacing the existing LED with a new one. If you install another resistor with the LED, then the LED will be dimmer than before.

Originally Posted by infinite012

All you're doing is replacing the existing LED with a new one. If you install another resistor with the LED, then the LED will be dimmer than before.

Good to know..

Originally Posted by kneescrap

Here are what i have done today

PHENOMENAL work, kneescrap! EXTREMELY ambitious and meticulous! Great job!

Originally Posted by infinite012

I'm not a fan of the amber/red. My eyes don't pick it up well at night (I guess that's sort of a good thing, less fatigue). But seeing as how I'm not really doing too much night time driving (at most I'll spend maybe 3 hours on a dark highway traveling from Richmond, VA to DC), the white is much more pleasing than the amber/red.

Edit: Just ordered 100x white 0805 LEDs. Now I wait for these things to ship from Hong Kong...

That is the point of them being amber/red light. It is why until very recently with the advent of nightvision and LED backlighting red light was used in aircraft cockpits and naval vessel instrumentation. BMW has done this for ages and never changed it.

http://www.jet-jobs.com/samples/mags.../lighting.html

Yeah, I understand the reasoning behind the amber LEDs, but I'm just not a fan of it. If you cared to read through the rest of my explanation (rambling, really), I say that I do much of my driving during the day.

Also, I just ripped apart the auto gear select panel to find it uses PLCC2 LEDs! So I changed those to white as well. Muhahaha.

The hazard button uses an incandescent bulb (which gets filtered through the red of the hazard outline as well as pink (!!!) which I was hoping would show up as white, but it's pink), so when I changed that to a white 5mm LED, I had to wire a 470 Ohm resistor in-line with the negative terminal of the LED. This made putting the button back together a bit more difficult, as I had an extra chunk of resistor hanging off the back of the PCB. The door lock button uses a 5mm LED which I changed to a white one as well.

Damnit the sunroof button is a pain to get open. The tilt push button has to be popped off for the back/underside of the button to pull apart from the casing. I ended up forcing it off - nearly broke the entire thing. I'm going to be epoxying a few parts...

But, again, the sunroof button uses 3 PLCC2 LEDs.

Originally Posted by ex-military

PHENOMENAL work, kneescrap! EXTREMELY ambitious and meticulous! Great job!

Thanks a lot good that some others like it to

Originally Posted by infinite012

Damnit the sunroof button is a pain to get open. The tilt push button has to be popped off for the back/underside of the button to pull apart from the casing. I ended up forcing it off - nearly broke the entire thing. I'm going to be epoxying a few parts...

But, again, the sunroof button uses 3 PLCC2 LEDs.

happy i never had that button but you are doing some good progress here infinite