LCD color change question/idea

[mindtrip1016]

Has anyone ever used LED's with an inline resistor to change the color of the LCD screens located in our gauges? Is it an LED or a removable bulb that lights up the LED screen? I have used electrical tape as have many others, but with my new reverse indiglo gauges, the blue of the LCD and the blue of the gauges are on opposite ends of the chart. With the LEDs I used in my door switches it should be a near match. I thought of just making the LCDs red, but that would take away from my white during the day and red indiglo by night needles. So has anyone used LED's for this mod yet?

[Crispy]

a bulb lights the LCD area but it is the FILTER located inside that changes the color... that's why you need to sand the green coating off.... once that is off then you can control the color of what you want it to be... unless you use a larger super bright LED I think it would be too dim... also I still think you would have to do something to the filter... there are other options than electrical tape for the color swap on the filter... ;)

this is a picture of the bulb that lights the LCD....

[mindtrip1016]

Thanks. I have done the color change before. I used blue electrical tape for the time being. Now I have new gauges and the blue is darker than that of the LCD with electrical tape. Since I previously removed the green off of the filter, I am thinking that the filter will look to be a light gray color during the day. Which is good cause I could never read the display with the blue elec. tape on the back of it. At night I am hoping that the blue LED will shine through the paper filter. If one is not bright enough, I have a bag of 23 sitting in my room. I can just "daisy-chain" them together like I did the red LEDs for my needle mod. Thank you for letting me know that it is a bulb the lights up the LCD. That is where I will get power for the LEDs.

[Crispy]

the color of the filter after sanding the filter is sorta like a brownish/yellow white.... it's nasty.. I also tried white electrical tape once hoping to have pure white LCDs... didn't work :( although grey did...

needle mod??? care to share that baby with me??? as well as a picture???

[jojolmnop]

has anyone the part number of that grey bulb? i have burned out bulbs in there and got the ones with the white base instead. doesn't exactly fit right. too big.

[mindtrip1016]

Originally posted by: Crispy
the color of the filter after sanding the filter is sorta like a brownish/yellow white.... it's nasty.. I also tried white electrical tape once hoping to have pure white LCDs... didn't work :( although grey did...

needle mod??? care to share that baby with me??? as well as a picture???


I will try to snap a pic when it gets dark. The '01 cougs came with orange needles, which are quite unattractive in my opinion. I wanted something that looked sporty by day and cool by night. So I went with some 240sx needles. They are white lexan. I wanted the color to change to red when the lights were on. So I took red tape and covered the back lights. That still wasn't quite bright enough for me. So I bought some 3mm red LEDs(5mm are too big) and soldered the leads in a circle. Got the correct value resistor and soldered the positive lead to the outside of the leads that hold the little bulbs in and also did the same for the negative lead. There is a company that makes these, but they wanted $70+. Indiglo Needles (http://www.importintelligence.com/FMPro?-DB=cart.fp3&-Format=Iglow.html&-Token=37483&-RecID=37483&CustID=USA&-Edit) I made mine for less than $10 including buying the 240sx needles.

[Crispy]

very very cool.... and yes.. I too would like the part number on that bulb... I told someone else about it and I think they fixed theirs... took it to a dealer and they sold him the bulbs... 5 bucks a piece.. I have a spare cluster with some burned out bulbs as well.. they are all the same ones like that in the pod...