DIY: Console Lights Color Swap

[Ocelaris]

I thought I would share my experience of changing my Dash console lights from their oem orange color to pure white.

First, a clarification between an LED and a light bulb. LEDs are not just fancy light bulbs, the technology is very different. Light bulbs heat up a filament (tungsten etc...) white hot, and a spectrum of colors are produced. Light Emitting Diodes are a different creature all together, they produce one color only, more specifically just one wavelength.

So you say, so what, I can just put a condom top on a Lightbulb and filter out all the colors I don't want. And yes you can, www.partsexpress.com sells the little colored condom tops for our lightbulbs.. however it's almost impossible to filter out all the colors you don't want, and when you do, maybe only 1% of the lightbulb's output is going towards that color.

With LEDs, you can not filter out color. You put a red filter on a Blue LED and you will get either no light, or only blue light. Why? Because red filters will stop all but red frequencies, but the blue LED is only putting out one color, as opposed to a white bulb which may put out green+red+blue = white. with a filter you get just one color... sort of, it's an off shade. Basically LEDs give you a pure color.

I have White LEDs... and White being a combination of all colors (or at least red, blue, and green), you say, but an LED has only 1 color... well, white LEDs are just a combo red+blue+green LED combined together into one package... Enough background, let's see it already.

[Ocelaris]

Disassemble dash. I'm going to jump to the specific parts. But you'll have to remove the knobs and buttons from the center console area. The knobs pull off, and there are like 3 screws on the knobs and 2 holding in the buttons.

Take everything apart until you have the knob part and button part. You'll have to remove any tinting that the knobs or buttons have. Use a flathead screwdriver on either side of the buttons to find a hidden tint. The knobs are pretty self explanatory, they're held on with something like doublesided tape.

[Ocelaris]

Ok, so I'll start with the buttons, as they took the longest. I used 6 white LEDs on the buttons, and 6 on the knobs.

Take off the back of the button module (2 screws and then pop it loose in the 4 corners). You'll notice the bulbs kinda screw in. The bulbs are connected in paralell, so they're not really dependent on each other. There are also 3 LEDs you will find, for when you turn on the AC/defrost/interior air. The 2 bulbs provide light for the icons on the buttons. 1 bulb lights 1 icon, and another is spaced inbetween the 2...

[Ocelaris]

If you want to swap out the LEDs for bulbs on a 1 to one basis, this is all you have to do, but I found since LEDs are so directional that I could only light 1 icon at a time because 1 bulb was "sharing" it's light... you could diffuse the LED, and might work ok. Originally this is what I planned, but ended up not going this route since I found it uneven lighting.

[Ocelaris]

Ok, so Now you've probably seen that I have Resistors soldered inline with the anode (positive) side of the LED. The Andoe is the smaller piece inside the plastic casing, also it is usually designated by a longer wire coming from it. The other side is the Cathode (negative) side, it's bigger inside the plastic casing, and as you might have guessed a shorter wire coming from it. Diodes only pass electricity 1 way, so it's important to keep your + and - straight. I'll get into which resistors to use later depending on your color LED.

This is the actual "button" that slides back and forth on the switch for A/C, defrost, inside air... the cavity where I hot glued the LED inside is where the light from the bulb was supposed to enter. I chose to put 1 LED per cavity/button.

[Ocelaris]

oops, guess this pic should've gone first... this is another LED before I hotglued it into the cavity.

[Ocelaris]

you see now the white button part is back in the black housing. Where there are just one wire is where 1 bulb per button. Where there are 2 wires is where 1 bulb was supposed to light 2 button icons.

[Ocelaris]

ok, now that we've got the bulbs replaced with LEDs, we have to replace the LEDs that are soldered into the PCB board with the chosen color LEDs... This is the easy part.

You'll notice the stock LEDs are rectangular instead of round like the ones you bought. You just need to sand down the LEDs to get them to fit into their button area. If you can drop your sanded LEDs through the area in the button they're sanded enough. Be careful not to sand down to the diode! You will find that some sides have more area to sand down than others.

[Ocelaris]

note on the front which side is anode, and which side is cathode... you just need to remember that on the back side.

[Ocelaris]

To remove the LEDs, just heatup one solder pad where the LED wire sticks through and pull on the plastic part of the LED to remove. It won't push through the first time, so do the other wire and try and push that through, go back and forth until the black button surround comes out with the LED (which is now free). Then put your LED in it's place and heatup the soldering pad to get the wire to push through.

[Ocelaris]

here's a view from the front of the buttons with the icons removed... you can see why we had to sand down the top LEDs to get them to fit.

[Ocelaris]

Ok, now you're ready to solder the icon LEDs back onto the PCB. Hopefully you have marked with red marker or something which wire is positive and which is negative. I marked mine with red magic marker which you can see. Solder the positive wire to the copper screw on pad, and the negative to the other copper pad. I've got them labeled for easy reference. Trust me, it was trial and error.

And that is it. You might have to stand the wires up so they fit into where the screw in bulb used to be, or the back plastic piece might not fit on correctly. Leave yourself plenty of room for soldering and just tuck the wires in, they're not in danger behind your dash.

[Ocelaris]

Ok, now the knobs. You hopefully get the idea of soldering LEDs now. take the back black piece off of the control knobs. You should see a PCB perpendicular to the knobs. You want to take out the knobs and the clear plastic piece on top that distributes the light from the Lightbulbs.

[Ocelaris]

ok, the next part is sorta tricky, there is a small PCB holding where the screw in lightbulbs used to be, and a two wires going to it. Remove the PCB from it's plastic holding it in (two wedges) and unplug the wire from the connector.

The picture is of the small PCB which held the screw in lightbulbs on top, and the big PCB on the bottom... wire unhooked.

[Ocelaris]

I used 3 white LEDs to replace the lightbulbs, one 150ohm 1/4watt resistor inline with the anode. Eventually I kinda bundled them up, seperating wires with tape, and hot glued them into place, which helps diffuse the very directional LEDs.

[Ocelaris]

here's them glued in place

[Ocelaris]

Now to wire them up I just took a couple small pieces of flexible wire and soldered the LEDs to the power source of the small PCB. namely where the wires that powered the bulbs came from... You've hopefully unhooked the small PCB via wire. Now you can solder to the back soldering pads for power for your LEDs. Anode and Cathode labeled (positive = Anode, negative = Cathode)

[Ocelaris]

I slid the wires from the Big PCB through the gap where the small PCB was removed from. Here's a pic of it all wired up from the side. I then put the clear light diffuser back, had to push it down real hard into the hot glue, but I think that helped make sure it was getting light.

[Ocelaris]

Here's the knobs running off a cheap 12v DC power supply. Oh, and that's a way you can test if you're doing things right, just put the marked (usually white striped) wire of the DC power supply on the anode (ONLY WITH RESISTOR), and the unmarked wire on the cathode and you can make sure you have everything wired up correctly.

[Ocelaris]

And thats it! put everything back together and you're done. I have more pics, but didn't want to post too many.

Ok, LED primer.

Leds have something called a forward voltage drop. White LEds are like 3.4volts, generally blues and whites are 4v, reds, oranges, greens are ~2. You can find all the specs on your particular LED from the manufacturer. If you can't, probably buying from the wrong source.

Forward voltage means this. You have a 12v source (your car), for every LED you lose the forward voltage... like you can only have 3x3.4v LEDS in series because 3x3.4v = <12v. 4x3.4 =>12v . That's the basic idea, I don't claim to be an EE, but that's basically how I understand it.

So you need to find the forward drop of the color of the LED you want. I got all my LEDs from www.superbrightLEDs.com No association or gaurantee from them, they just have good prices, good info, and fast shipping. I reccomend going there and looking at the color LED you want, and the forward voltage drop.

http://www.superbrightleds.com/leds.htm -> click the part number on the left for the specs of that LED.

Then you plug that into this LED calculator:

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Bill_Bowden/led.htm

The fields to enter are:
Total LEDs = the number of LEDs in series you want. (you can do 1 also).
LED Voltage = the average forward voltage drop
LED Current (mA) = assumed at 20mA driving, which is what most LEDs are rated at. (for brightness)
Total Voltage = your car may go from 12v to 14v. I reccomend 13.5 as a good rough estimate, always go higher voltage because you don't want to cut it close and blow your LEDs

now press "find Resistor" and it will spit out:


Series Resistor = the wattage and ohm rating of the resistor you'll need, this is the minimum

I'm sure I left alot out, but hopefully that'll give some people some ideas. Also anyone in the DC area interested in seeing it in person drop me an email, It looks much much better in person :-) Best, Bill

[swapp99]

Bill YOU THE MAN:eek: :eek:
This was a great post. Once I get the BALLS to start this I will PM You. Thanks again for the great info. YES I too hate the orginal lites. I think you done this stuff B4..... GREAT JOB!!

[Mex]

great info, great pics! i definitely gotta check this out in person. seems like a lot of work, about how long did it mod take?

[Ocelaris]

I would say somebody with some soldering experience could get it done in 2-3 hours, the planning part takes a while. Just map out the resistors, and all that beforehand.

I forgot to mention why I soldered wires onto the knobs instead of just soldering the LEDs to the screw in copper terminals on the small PCB. If you look at the PCB, you'll notice the two cicuit paths are in series, meaning I could only have upto 4, 3.4v LEDs on that circuit... I had 6 white LEDs left, and decided to use all 6, 3 in each well, so I needed a seperate 12v source for each set of 3 LEDs. So I went to the source of the power, back on the Big PCB. Some of you might have been wondering why I didn't just solder the LEDs to the copper terminals. Well you can if you have either lower voltage LEDS, and calculate it for series, or Do it like I did and just get a fresh power source for each 3xLED well.

The drawing with the little PCB over the Big PCB on the first page that starts with "ok, the next part is sorta tricky..." is wrong, I labeled the positive and negative sides incorrect. I didn't actually have to figure that out, so I just thought through it for whomever wanted to know... You should be able to tell which is positive or negative by following the wire which I did label correctly (or at least I know the soldering tabs behind the pins are correct), and follow it to the short PCB... sorry for the confusion.

Yeah Mex, and anyone else in the DC area interested we should have a DC area meet sometime :-)

I will note that the white LEDs are very bright, almost to the point of distracting, but definetly enough light all around, actually the only ones that are too bright are the ones I sanded down, and those I have the least control over :-/

[i-WERKS]

did you do the cluster as well? Please post more pics from a distance. It's looking good.

[Speck]

I am coming over, B :)

We have to setup a weekend day, I bring beer and supplies and we have a ball designing and modifying.

Man, you got MAD skillz :)

I will call you soon!

-=speck=-

[fsugatorbait]

Bill,
Excellent work, you went way beyond just chaning the color of the dash, damn! Did you also the change the color of the gauges? Would love to see some more pics. Keep us posted with your next little project you got planned;) , would really like to see how that turns out! Lata bro,
Phil

[Ocelaris]

Originally posted by i-WERKS
did you do the cluster as well? Please post more pics from a distance. It's looking good.


Phil et. alll,

I haven't done the gauge clusters yet, as I don't know howto take the gauges out yet! I could drive around without my console area, but I really need the gauges to drive :-) Maybe this weekend I will take apart the gauge cluster and do a little discovery planning. The problem with changing the gauge clusters as I've been told is that the tinting is not removable, like the console area. Meaning you have to use acetone or nail polish remove to sort of dissolve away the color. That is here -say, meaning I haven't confirmed that either way yet. But there is a simple way around that, just switch the gauge cluster from bulbs with orange tint, to pure red LEDS :-) Which would have the effect of just making the entire thing pure red (orange tint would have no effect, and the daylight colors would be preserved). Now if you wanted to do blue or white, you'd have to work out other details... white and blue are nice accent lights, but really red is much more comfortable on my eyes, so I'm not even considering blue/white for my gauge cluster.

I will try and take some more pics, my fiancee took those right after we finished putting it back together.

Eric, sounds good to me.

Mex, are you going to do a Tein SS coilover install with aznslim7 from 7th gen? I'd love to meet up with you guys and help/learn. If nothing else just meetup to talk cars. Bill

[SinisterCivicSi]

dam man you got too much time on your hands! j/k

looks awsome, you must have like an electricians job or sumthing....your way more brave than me....i would be afraid to blow my console up soldering the wrong wires together or sumthin! lol

keep it up.....

[oogy-boogy]

Excellent post.......Thanks for all of the info!

[Ocelaris]

someone asked on www.7thgencivic.com what tools I used.

15w Radioshack soldering iron - low wattage keeps it from burning up small components

Solder with rosin core - the rosin is real important, helps stuff bind, I know they reccomend like silver solder with no rosin for electronics, but I

Small wire snips - for cutting LED wires, resistors etc...

assorted screw drivers - phillps for most screws, flat head for popping buttons off, backs off etc...

I have a handy dandy "helping hand with magnifying glass" picture attached. This thing holds your two wires/LEDs/resistors so you can solder. Because normally you have two wires, the soldering iron, and the solder to hold all at once, that's really the only secret tool, the rest is pretty self explanatory, if you have any specific questions about any part lemme know and I'll try and clarify. I think you can get the 'helping hand' from radio shack, or I got mine at allelectronics.com here (http://www.allelectronics.com/cgi-bin/category.cgi?category=search&item=HELPH-M&type=store)

Oh, and I don't really have any job or training related to electronics, I just take things apart, and trial and error learn stuff. This is pretty safe, as long as you don't get solder on parts you're not supposed to. LEDs can be hooked up backwards and they're safe, just don't connect them forwards without a resistor inline. (you'll just burn out the LED, but nothing dangerous).

Soldering tips: Ideally you heatup the two wires and then just touch the solder to the wires which melts and kinda sucks up onto the wire. The 15watt iron is very weak, but that's what you need for small projects like this. Just don't try and do big wires with it, as it'll never be able to heat thewires up enough to join them. Please let me know if anyone out there does this mod, I'd be interested in how other people's turn out. Bill

[ALCT]

wow
a lot of work just to change the color, congrats.

[Brettnyt]

WOAH! those lights look tight and bright as hell! Any other pics of em turned on or are they really that bright? Looks good, I wouldnt mind bright red or white...

[Zero Three Si]

You should just start a business and charge like 100-150 to do this for people.....

[ssvr6]

The work is great! So good I even added it to my site!

Kudos again Bill, great work and great pics too!


Steve

[Makross]

neat great job:cool:

[Ocelaris]

Note to Self, in future sand off the round part of the LED so that the beam will be very difuse... right now they're too directional and can be too bright at night... but I attribute that to not sanding off the tops... Will definetly do that next time. But over all it's pretty sweet... Had to goto the Honda Dealer to get a lug nut key, and I showed the girl who was moving my light the White console lights, and she was like "Oh, that's cool, I didn't know you could do that... " And I was like, "you can't, But I did anyways" :-)

It was alot of work, but everytime my friend with a brand spankin new Mercedes comes over and everyone fawns over his car... I just know that all the $$ in the world can't buy what I've done to my vehicle :-) Ok, well I could be bought off, but the point is that no manufacturer is going to build you a car that fits you perfect, so it's up to you to fix it up, change it so it suits you. How many of you keep the same background on your computer's desktop, mouse speed, sounds etc? No offense to mercedes, but If I could have a car 100% modded to my desires (within reasonable budgets), or a super nice mercedes costing 10x what miener civic did, but not at all customized. I'd take my civic any day of the week.

just need to do the gauges Hyper Duper Whooper Si Red now :-)

[StrangeShadow]

just need to do the gauges Hyper Duper Whooper Si Red now
sweet can't wait to see the cluster done, that's my main interrior goal. the orange is killing me, I have it tuned all the way down.

[BaLLiNbOi421]

does ne1 do this... im not to handy with soldering... i tried to do leds on my cellfone one time and i was at cingular an hour later gettin a new fone...

[Ocelaris]

I've had the gauge cluster done for at least 6 months, if not longer... hope you weren't still waiting... just happened upon this thread, and though I'd bump it for people interested...


sweet can't wait to see the cluster done, that's my main interrior goal. the orange is killing me, I have it tuned all the way down.

[oogy-boogy]

Def a great write up....I used it for my Red LED swap last year. :)

[i-WERKS]

Def a great write up....I used it for my Red LED swap last year. :)

Lets see some pics!!

[oogy-boogy]

Lets see some pics!!

Click on the "My ride" link in my sig below :).

[shimmy_yaz]

Wow haven't seen this thread or ocelaris in awhile. Still trying to get brave enough to actually do this because i hate the orange but I am too afraid of messing up my cluster.

[Gasp23]

Here are the images from Oogy-boogy

http://www.we-todd-did-racing.com/wetoddimage.wtdr/wNDUzOTE5NnM0MTNkZmQzMXk1NDE%3D.jpg

http://www.we-todd-did-racing.com/wetoddimage.wtdr/wNDUzOTIwNnM0MTNkZmQzMXk1NDE%3D.jpg

[oogy-boogy]

Here are the images from Oogy-boogy


Thanks ;)

[Ocelaris]

Me likes :o) Nice red color :-) makes me almost want to go back and do them all red, but gahhh the work... I bet that looks sick at night all red /clap

[oogy-boogy]

Me likes :o) Nice red color :-) makes me almost want to go back and do them all red, but gahhh the work... I bet that looks sick at night all red /clap


hehehe....Thanks. All possible because of your DIY ;). Thanks again.... :shadesm:

[oogy-boogy]

By the way...


Any chance that you still have pics of the gauge cluster ripped apart? Primarily the middle area without the plastic gages that have all the characters (numbers, letters, etc)....

[Btrthnezr3]

http://www.we-todd-did-racing.com/wetoddimage.wtdr/wNDUzOTE5NnM0MTNkZmQzMXk1NDE%3D.jpg

WHOOT, look at that sexy Oogy hand!!! OOOOOOOOH :*

[oogy-boogy]

WHOOT, look at that sexy Oogy hand!!! OOOOOOOOH :*
lol...Amy was driving :p

[Btrthnezr3]

Damn!!! Ok, I officially suck!
Dark lighting ownz me.
Hahaha, that is STILL funny.
Thanks for pointing that out...makes me feel real cool :rolleyes: :* :angel:

[Ocelaris]

By the way...
Any chance that you still have pics of the gauge cluster ripped apart? Primarily the middle area without the plastic gages that have all the characters (numbers, letters, etc)....

Do you mean this one?

http://www.we-todd-did-racing.com/wetoddimage.wtdr/wNDc2MTI3NnM0MTNkZmQzMXk1NDE%3D.jpg

http://www.we-todd-did-racing.com/wetoddimage.wtdr/wNDc2MTI4NnM0MTNkZmQzMXk1NDE%3D.jpg

Or this one is helpful... Eventually I changed this, so my gauges are not wired anything like this... I have a bunch of strings of SMD LEDs hot glued around onto the white part below the light diffuser clear part...

see in this picture, right now the blue LEDs were sticking out of the holes, which just gave way too many hot spots, so they are now strings of white LEDs around there now... Today it looks like this... sorta, except everything is white, no blue LCD backlight, and my headunit is also all white...

http://www.we-todd-did-racing.com/wetoddimage.wtdr/wNDc2MTY3NnM0MTNkZmQzMXk1NDE%3D.jpg

http://www.we-todd-did-racing.com/wetoddimage.wtdr/wNDc2MTY4NnM0MTNkZmQzMXk1NDE%3D.jpg

[oogy-boogy]

Perfect!

Thanks again ;)....

[BarracksSi]

Man, that would absolutely kill my night vision, but -- that's pretty kickass, I like how it looks.