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i cleared the needles last night, what pice of cake.

i think i should put a lil coat of white on the top the base part of the needle (part that is inbetween the black cap) because it seems that the light shoots straight right there and if i put some whit i think it will reflect off and then be aimed down the rest of the needle.

what do you guys think??? i am not going to put white on the entire top part, only base part that is surrounded by black

 
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You only need to paint the bottom part of the needle that sticks out of the base. Don't paint the top at all! It will block the light. The paint on the bottom makes the whole needle light up the same. Look how mine are on the first page.

 
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"...i cleared the needles last night, what pice of cake..." what did you use to cleared the needles??? acetone (or something like that) ????

thank you kindly

 
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rubbing alcohol, and/or nail polish remover.

 
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19 pages for diy needle coloring hahaha

 
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Yeah, lol. Most of it was figuring out stuff and changing procedures.

Thanks for the comments everyone. You really have to see it in person, as the pic doesn't do it justice.

You want to use around 90% alcohol on the needles to take off the paint from both sides. Using acetone will permanently dull the plastic!

 
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cool, i good thing i didnt paint the top, i was feelin lazy last night. LOL

but they are done now and i am closing them up for good tonight. i am just checkin to make sure all the needles move smooth and are accurate, then i will be done.

thanx for the info on the needle clearing guys.

 
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Did you ever get pics of how it turned out? Are the needles any brighter?

 
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gearbox, where can I buy the white transparent glass paint you mentioned in your DIY on the 1st page? I just cleared mine and want to distribute the light better like what you did. I'm assuming I just need to put one light coat of white paint on the back/bottom portion of the needle. Thanks in advance...

 
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I'll get pics of the needle and paint up tonight so you know for sure. I got it from Michael's, but other craft places may carry it as well. Man the EL cable worked out really well after using 2 packages for backlight. Nice and bright; even lighting that looks just like it came stock. And now I don't have the fear of bulbs burning out or discoloring.

 
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Cool, thanks for the info. Yup, you're right about the bulbs, I've had to replace 2 bulbs already. Plus, you have to be careful not to put the tip of the condoms too close to the bulb, otherwise it'll burn thru and melt the condom (plus it defeats the purpose of the condom and just shines amber due the close proximity of the condom to bulb). I'll evetually do the EL cable, since the lighting is definitely a lot more even compared to condoms (way too lazy right now). In any case I'll go get the paint from Michaels and post a pic of the results when I'm done. Thanks for the quick response, gearbox.

 
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Your car looks really nice btw. So many mods. I remember a long time ago you posted a thread about making the needles brighter. Hope you got your answer after all this! Here are the pics I said I would upload. You can see how the needle is painted only on the bottom, and only the part that sticks out of the holder.

 
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I made a couple more changes to the first page and added a new night pic (long exposure). There is ALL the info you need to easily make your gauges like mine.

I also removed alot of the pics that were unnecessary. I got it down to about 30 pics total, so it should load a bit faster.

NorrinRadd, how did yours come out?

 
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01 needles are supposed to be clear, but i looked at mine and it looks as if theyre solid orange, or black with orange covering the whole needle. is it really clear tho? like will all the colors come off with the alcohol and be clear? or is my 01 just weird for some reason....

 
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yup, all the colors will come off. There is a layer of orange on top, and white and orange on the bottem, you have to remove both.

 
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Well, I used needles from an 01 and AlienX is correct. You should be able to see the clear plastic from the side of the needle.

 
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I just updated the first page again with pics of the dash lights and gauge lights. Looks sooo nice.

 
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LOOKS SICK GEAR !!! I can't wait to do my power mirror and moonroof and stuff hehe.. I still have lots to do, but I'm not going to do the power window until I want to put in new speakers.. might as well kill two birds with one stone.

 
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For the power window switch, the door panel does not need to come off. Just the door handle. Then you can pull out the box and tinker with it. I sortof have pics and directions on the front page.

 
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The only thing I'm disappointed about is the gauge backlight brightness. They look pretty dim, but then again the other blue lights aren't that bright either. I'm just leaving it cause there's no getting it perfect. Oh well.

 
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Okay, the gauge backlight just isn't looking good. It's too dim and green compared to everything. Any other ideas on what I can do? I may end up having to do LEDs. Maybe white? I just don't know what to do and I'm tired of messing with it. Help...

 
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gear, send me a guage cluster and I will install LEDs for you

 
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Thanks, but I got it the way I want finally. I added a third kit of EL wire and it's really bright now. Looks exactly like the first pic of the DIY. I'm very happy with this. I'm gonna change the DIY for it cause I ended up cutting out huge pieces of the plastic light shield. Superglue clouded it from before.

I even ran a little extra wire on the bottom below the cover, so light shines in (can't see the actual wire). Looks so good finally!!!!

 
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20 PAGES!!!! WHOA!

I just read through each and every post and learned though the development process of what works, doesn't work and sort-of works.

I'm a mechanical engineer by trade, and I do have an idea on how to get perfectly even backlighting with LEDs. I just have to tinker with the idea a bit more before attempting it.

I've opened my cluster to take a look inside. I'm going to bring home a digital caliper from work to work out the clearances between the back of the gauge faces and the circuit board. I hope I can pull this off.

My ETA for completion is about 2 weeks. Since my car is a daily driver and I work 5 days a week, I'll have to restrict myself to weekends only for this project. I've been DREAMING of getting blue gauge and needle lighting for a while now. Had a set of reverse-indiglo gauges off e-bay. Total ****.

Anyhow, I'll let you know what I come up with and will post pics and updates as I work on this...

All I know is that my idea will probably require a lot of LEDs, at least 20... ugh. what am I getting myself in to????????

(fingers crossed).

 
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Gearbox - question to clarify:

You know the clear, injection molded light-guide thingies behind the gauge faces... What is their purpose?

Suppose, for arguments sake, I ripped out these light guides and kept everything else stock. What would happen?

Thanks in advance!


EL

 
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Hey cool. The backlight is pretty even with the EL cable, but I had to use 15 feet ($60) to make it bright enough! I bet if you do one blue LED for each number, it will turn out nice and bright. I just wanted an indiglo color for the numbers, instead of everything being LED blue.

Have fun with this one. It's truely something unique to do and you'll love the results. It's gonna be a pain wiring up 20+ LEDs in there.

Just a suggestion--you could sand down the LED tips flat and glue each one behind the plastic shield. I actually melted off chunks of the shield to let more light through. I'll update the DIY for backlight a bit later.

UPDATE: The new 03-04 clusters with white numbers use four LEDs for each dial and some white coating to disperse the light. I don't think it would work with blue, since it's not as bright.

 
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About the light guides. All they do is guide the stock bulb light to the needles. If you tape them off or remove them, the needles won't light up.

 
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Here's a pic with normal exposure and no flash. It gives you an idea about the needle color.

 
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Thanks for the info, gearbox. I've come up with several ideas, varying in cost;

1) On the backs of the dial, use a translucent (not transparent) film to aid in dispersion. Then, use a LOT of LEDs to light up this translucent panel. For the translucent film, I had a good idea. I could sandwich a thin sheet (1-2mm thick) of plexiglass between two sheets of acetate(what's used for overhead projectors). I'd sand the acetate down with 800 grit sandpaper to disperse the light. As you've said a bunch of times, LED's are far too directional to give an even glow, and they are bloody expensive. This option would require, by my best guess, around 20-30LEDs in total.

2) Use a cluster of surface-mount LEDs and surround them in a translucent cover. This option would allow to pack in the most possible LEDs in the smallest amount of space. But, again, I'm scared that the result will have bright/dark spots. I'd put these clusters in the stock light locations and maybe supplement them with additional ones here and there as needed.

3) Pursue your route of using the EL cable. I only wish it came in a darker shade of blue. I'm planning on swapping my ventilation controls, cruise, sunroof, power mirror and heated seat lights with blue LED and would like it all to match as best I can. I'm leaning towards this idea because it has proven results - thanks a million for that! With EL cable you're pretty much guaranteed even light coverage if you use enough. I'd probably get a 15' kit right off the bat and cover the fvck out the gauge backs. Question, though - did your EL kit come with a dimmer? Or did you wire it such that it dims with stock dimmer dial? I don't even know if you can do this with EL cable. Since it runs at high AC voltage, reducing the input voltage may not work.

Anyhow, I'll let you know how my gauges turn out. I have an Acura 1.7EL, so my gauges do look a bit different than yours. Stock, EVERYTHING is amber, except for the smaller speed numbers/graduations on the inside of the spedo (mph in my case) - they are white. I may black them out with electrical tape, as you did, since it gives a cleaner look.

 
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Hey, if you do use leds, go to superbrightleds.com and get them for $1-2 instead of getting $4 ones from radioshack. That would have saved me alot of money.

I would not add anything else like translucent paper or anything. I actually cut out the plastic pieces in the light shield so the cable was very close to the numbers. Nothing will be perfect, but it really doesn look stock when I turn em on. I got three packs of 5 feet cable by optix (streetglow) in neo blue. The more you put in, the brighter and bluer it becomes. No dimmer, but you wouldn't want one. I started with one kit, and added the other two to make it bright enough to match everything else.

I will update the DIY for EL backlight sometime today to include the most recent pics.