c-money

Alienx - the paint on the back works??

does it light up nice at night tho. if so, does it still make te same color blue as the bulb condoms (aqua/teal blue) or is actually BLUE??

and why do you use lights during the day?? LOL

gearbox

iTrader: (95)

You would have to have a thick layer of blue paint, and then the light output will be terrible anyway.

Anyone in Illinois that needs help just send me a PM. After next week, we can set meet times.

Refer to my DIY if you want to know more about LEDs and EL cable. The neo-blue cable actually is blue if you use enough, but turns slightly more green after some driving. Don't know why, only that my old aftermarket indiglos would do the same.

c-money

oh, that bites. oh well. itll stay like this FOR NOW. then i will eventually do leds

thanx guys

AlienX

iTrader: (2)

c-money: By day I ment that the blue paint didnt look diffrent on the needle in the day light not with the lights on...
It doesn't look any diffrent at night either, like gear said, you would have to put a thick layer on but that would just make lighting horrible. I would not suggest painting it thick with condoms because they already have a poor light output. LEDs would be able to handel it.

c-money

i was gonna taket the condoms off, i jus dun want to mess with the leds. so maybe ill try to jus paint the bulbs with a couple coats of transparent blue and see how i like that.

AlienX

iTrader: (2)

good luck dude, I dont think its going to come out too great but best of luck !

c-money

yeah i know, ah well.

thanx

maybe i will change back to white/amber

ncirom2003

iTrader: (7)

where did you get those gauges... they are awsome i want them lol the black looks sweet

ncirom2003

iTrader: (7)

im just wondering what size led's did you guys use for each application and did you run them in series or parallel. also what applications did you use resistors and what size.... hopefully not those little microscopic ones that i recieved from ledautomotive.com i attempted this the other day and royally screwed up but your way with the wires and tape looks easier so any help is appreciated. thank you

gearbox

iTrader: (95)

I used 2500mcd 5mm leds from radioshack with 560 ohm resistors, but that's prolly a bit too high. You could go lower like 400 something so they're brighter. Got everything from radioshack, nice and big resistor and led.

The gauge faces are off a 2001 sedan ex only. Needles used to be orange.

paradoxblue

iTrader: (1)

gearbox im searching for oyur diy now

but i like how you did the needles blue and the rest white thats hot

im iffy on pulling out my guages

but looks frigin nice well done

gearbox

iTrader: (95)

This isn't my diy just to clear that up. I just posted it here. The blue glow needles thread is mine

CarbonFiberSi

iTrader: (1)

Just a question.
All I want to do with mine are change the needles to Green.
Is there a paint I could use to get this look?
Any suggestions on how I could do this?
Thanks for any help.

gearbox

iTrader: (95)

no way is paint gonna work. You should follow the blue glow needle diy except use green leds instead of blue.

Step1. Look at the needles to make sure they're clear from the side (some are pink plastic and won't work).

step2. remove needles, clear off orange paint on top and bottom with 95% isopropyl alcohol. Paint bottom of needles ONLY with white glass paint using a liner brush.

step3. drill holes and wire in leds, one for each small gauge and two for each big one. Tap the wires to the illumination wire coming into the blue cluster plug.

step4. don't forget to put e-tape over the light guides so the bulb light is blocked from reaching the needles. If you don't do this, the led color will get washed out by the clear bulb light.

step5. put back together and enjoy

ncirom2003

iTrader: (7)

a total noob question but would those gauges work on my 02 lx 5spd coupe if i got the 01 ex cpe 5spd gauges? would it still be black

gearbox

iTrader: (95)

The ONLY gauges that will be black and white are on the 2001 SEDAN. You can look on ebay, and yes if you get that it will fit in your 02 lx. Just make sure you get manual and not auto (it has the P R N D letters on it). And the lighting is different. Sedans have green/yellow backlight, coupes have red/amber. But it won't matter if you're getting it for lighting. You can even swap just the gauge face like I did. My cluster is 02 but I'm using 01 faces.

AlienX

iTrader: (2)

like gear said...

bout the 5spd thing...you CAN probebly use a 5spd console, but i might give u a SRS.

ncirom2003

iTrader: (7)

i wasnt going to swap the whole console just the gauges so ill have to search cus i doubt honda sells it spereate

so where you did all those led's on the climate control and on the gauges is it in parallel or series. i figure u just missed my earlier question but incase someone here has done it and dont know what i mean i drew a picture of a circuit to explain

gearbox

iTrader: (95)

I wired all mine in series and tapped the wires off the illumination wire coming to the gauge cluster. It's a big mess, and that wire is tiny, but it should be okay since leds don't use much power.

AlienX

iTrader: (2)

all the LEDs i have setup are in parallel. Its a lot harder doing it in series, even though it will take less resistors to construct but will clutter everything. Not only that but you have redundancy if you use parallel.

LOL and nice schematic :P looks too funny
LEDS have a circle around them and little arrows to indicate that its an LE Diode, not just a diode.

ncirom2003

iTrader: (7)

i know that the led symbol is diff but i am not good with ms paint so oh well... i thought led's were a diode with three diagonal arrows pointing off the arrow... w/e
i would think parallel is better because the bulbs will shine alot brighter and series seems easier to me. can someone tell me if they remember what the three color bands are on the resistor there should be the three next to each other on the left then on the far right silver or something. those four colors in order would help. rep points for everyone lol. i dont feel like bustin out my electric book

AlienX

iTrader: (2)

the far right is the tolerance level, you will only find LEDs with gold now a days because they are soo easy to make.

Black

Brown

Red

Orange

Yellow

Green

Blue

Violet

Gray

White

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

AlienX

iTrader: (2)

sorry, white didnt come out.. but its 9 :P

AlienX

iTrader: (2)

http://xtronics.com/kits/rcode.htm

AlienX

iTrader: (2)

for the type of resistance you need varies on the LEDs ampage rating. LEDs are NOT voltage driven, no matter what someone tells you...

ncirom2003

iTrader: (7)

thanks... new the tolerance thingy ... but for the resistors u used i meant waht is tolerance and the other three bands... i believe i read 400 ohms

ncirom2003

iTrader: (7)

so that would be yello white brown then silver tolerance is 5% i believe

AlienX

iTrader: (2)

you dont want to use silvers anymore.. you can't even get silver anymore from what I know..
yellow = 4
white = 9
brown = multiplier = 1 so thats 1 "0" at the end..
= 490 Ohms

and with silver, it can vary 5% up or Down..

AlienX

iTrader: (2)

I dont remeber the values I used, you would have to look though the thread where gearbox first did the LED thing, i posted it somewhere in there.. I remeber I was somewhere in the 360 or 340 range, but it all depends on your LEDs and its always better to add more resistance then not enough, it wont change the intesity.

ncirom2003

iTrader: (7)

cool thanks... im probably gonna run to radioshack or somethin tomorow. so i hope my mind will be straight when i go cus i know this stuff but maybe im tired right now. anyways thanks ill go for 380-400 ohms resistors and run each bulb socket in parallel with the two leds per socket in series using the blue led's you described. this sounds alot easier than screwing with it like in the ledautomotive.com diy