LED Blue map lights, help
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Re: LED Blue map lights, help
if you get the ebay ones they slide over the originals easily without taking needles off or anything else.
Re: LED Blue map lights, help
yea but i am kinda at a loss at how it changes the color then.lol is it a color combination or somethin? thats why i was askin if you could take the original ones out and put this in its place.
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Re: LED Blue map lights, help
the ebay ones are self lit. they cover up the light from the stock gauges, and they make their own light using electroluminescence (electricity to excite organic compounds). no bulbs. in fact you can test them by hooking it straight to the car battery when they are off the car and they will light up (be sure to properly connect the inverter first). i used to have a set of the full face gauges and loved em. you do need to wire them up to the dash lights tho. it comes with the inverter (to convert dc to ac power) and all the wiring. and there are better ones than the one you posted. do you want full glow or just numbers? heres a pic of my old ones. there is either full glow (the whole gauge lights up except the black numbers) or reverse glow (only the numbers light up). i really liked the full glow faces. color was nice bluish aqua color and crazy bright. came with a dimmer switch too. they are white during the day with black numbers. then at night the white part lights up blue. its really cool technology.
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Re: LED Blue map lights, help
no you have to tap the wire into the dash light wire (red/blk) going to the blue plug. then ground the black wire of the gauges. they install just like any other led or neon with a + and - wire to hookup. once you get them you will see how they have wires coming from the sides and those plug into the inverter box, then inverter is wired to the dash lights.
Re: LED Blue map lights, help
these guys have conversions for all the dash lights and the bulbs to replace regular ones. i used the xmas deal to get all for like $50
http://ledautomotive.com/category.php?id_category=13
http://ledautomotive.com/category.php?id_category=13
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Re: LED Blue map lights, help
Re: LED Blue map lights, help
well while we're at it here I've been trying to find a way to just change the bulbs to pnp leds in the dash. I don't really want to do a cluster swap. I wanna try to get the gas and temp guages to be red and the tach and speedometer to be white (white not that greenish color). If I understand correctly, you have to pull the cluster out and use acetone on the backside of the guage face to remove that color filter, then "create you own" with paper or something? Thanks.
ps (I have an 02 civic lx)
ps (I have an 02 civic lx)
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Re: LED Blue map lights, help
multicolor is very difficult, mostly because the bulbs also light up the needles. and the colors would bleed together unless you are really careful with the mounting. and you would have to use extra leds for the needles since without bulbs, they wont light up anymore. you can read more in this very old diy
https://www.civicforums.com/forums/1...w-needles.html
https://www.civicforums.com/forums/1...w-needles.html
Re: LED Blue map lights, help
ok i see what you're saying. that's a really diy btw. but i was just thinking about replacing the bulbs (with pnp leds, 74's if i'm not mistaken) not removing them completely. would this work if i removed the "nasty green color" paint and used one color rather than two? Thanks for your response too!
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Re: LED Blue map lights, help
the problem with using pnp leds is usually they are bad quality but also there will be hotspots since when you remove the painted color on the back, you also remove the diffusion grid that evens out the bulb light. provided the leds are bright and wide enough, it might work and you could use office paper to put directly over the parts that are brighter to dim it down. it will take some trial and error.
i did one cluster like that for a member who wanted the black sedan faces but with dark red backlight instead of green. so i cleared the faces with acetone on the back, put two layers of red taillight repair film, and then carefully put paper pieces on the spots that were brighter to diffuse the bulb light evenly. came out pretty good. lemme see if i can dig up some old pics of the acetone process. here are the red face gauges i did but using the stock bulbs. he wanted the evo look
i did one cluster like that for a member who wanted the black sedan faces but with dark red backlight instead of green. so i cleared the faces with acetone on the back, put two layers of red taillight repair film, and then carefully put paper pieces on the spots that were brighter to diffuse the bulb light evenly. came out pretty good. lemme see if i can dig up some old pics of the acetone process. here are the red face gauges i did but using the stock bulbs. he wanted the evo look

Re: LED Blue map lights, help
cool thats awesome man. So I would just need to get that paint off, (you said you used acetone, but did you use a cloth, a razorblade, or both?) layer tail light repair paper and maybe some pieces of office paper where the bulbs are to diffuse the brightness (of the stock bulbs)?
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Re: LED Blue map lights, help
use qtips and change them often. you will see when paint builds up and it stops working. once you get it off, try not to keep doing the same area. just keep going. if you use too much acetone it will crack plastic. if you are keeping the stock bulbs then you can only change the color to amber or red using the respective taillight repair tapes (transparent color film with sticky backing). if using leds, leave the faces cleared.do not get acetone on the front of the gauges, it will destroy them. put the acetone on the qtips away from the gauges so you dont get any splashing. if you get lil bit on yourself its not a huge deal, but you should prolly work in a ventilated area away from open flames.
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