LSUMatt1514

Just wanted to see who all on here has done it and if it is as difficult as it seems. Damn that would be cool, but is it worth the long hours and all the cuss words...Someone chime in here. Later.

Matt

White SR5

Well... I've done the central part. I'll get the indiglo guages sometime. Mine's a 2001 and all I had to do was put in the LEDs and resistors. I didn't have to mess with the film. If you do it in one weekend you will frustrate yourself. Do 2 or three per weekend and you'll be done by the time a month has passed. That's what I did. Is there any huge difference? No... does it look cool? Yes! Is it worth it? Depends on you. I fiddled around with it when I didn't have anything else to do, and I'd say yes it's worth it. It takes time and patience, that's all.

Zach

Wild_Bill

Dang Matt I was very close to being in Birmingham (Maxwell AFB) for six weeks starting Sep 15th, I would have been more than happy to help you out, as it turns out I'm going down to Biloxi instead. I've written up some on my site though and I belive there's a couple other write-ups floating around too.

LSUMatt1514

Anyone else tackle this yet?

Matt

HaveBlue

I changed mine to red. However, I didn't create a write-up.
The conversion was fairly simple but time consuming.

Andrey

Here ya go:

I've got the blues (by Wild_Bill)

-- Andrey

keisur

I have a link on my home computer that I'll post when I get home tonight. the place sells both sizes of bulbs needed for the complete dash and gauges in 3 different styles of LED and all colors. it takes alot of the work out of soldering and resistors and that stuff. just plug in and go.

EDIT: This isn't the one I have at home but it's got both sizes, 194 and 74.
http://www.lightlens.com/coloredbulbs.htm

Toyota Punk

I did it but used white. Came out really nice but it was a huge pain in the butt, and I blew the heater control circuit board. It was a very very frustrating project, even for someone who's been doing soldering and wiring for some time, but it's worth it now that it's over.

phoenix808

Toyota Punk -- do you have pics of it w/ white? I think that'd look slick a night...

LSUMatt1514

Andrey,
Can you take some pics and post them?

Keiser,
Any more info on the site you were talking about?

Man I wanna do this. I just don't want to screw anything up in the process. I've never soldered anything in my life, so I guess I'd better practice first.

Matt

Shane

There's a few of those sellers out there now, ledtronics.com was one of the first to bring them out. Always thought of trying it but never actually followed through...

keisur

Here ya go matt. sorry it took so long, RoadRunner was having probs out here in Katy and it just now popped back on.

LEDs
http://www.ledtronics.com/

EDIT: added Shane's link from above so it's just a click and not a mark, copy, paste, enter to get to it.

LSUMatt1514

Keiser,
I sent you an email about it. Thanks for posting that site.

Matt

keisur

Only thing I can see about that www.ledtronics.com posted above is that the #74 bulbs are >$10 each and you have to buy in big quantities. I figured out at the other place I could get all the bulbs I need plus a few spares for around $50 total + shipping.

Also for the three #194 gauge bulbs I would probably go with the wide angle opaque bulbs to disperse the light throughout the gauges. the to turn signal 194's I wouldn't think it would matter but an opaque on in there would be the best option with some theater light gel (link to get a pack on Wild_Bill's write-up he posted above) and a plastic piece to replace the green plastice filter. I've tried to "rig" it with just the blue lightbulbs and that sucked so I returned everything back to stock but now those leds are available so I think I'll give it a go again with the right stuff.

LSUMatt1514

Anyone else with a 2000+ model interested in doing this mod? Maybe we could all start it at the same time and kind of walk one another through it as we went. Just a thought. I am strongly considered the Speehut gauges for the instrument panel, which I know would make several people on this forum very, very happy. Let me know what you think. Later.

Matt

Toyota Punk

Matt - go with the Speedhut!! We neeeeeeeeeed you :cry: I think we only need 3 or 4 more, and I've even been considering buying a second set just to get things moving. My dash just looks rediculous with amberish gauges and white everything else. I feel like I have to explain to everyone why it looks so dumb.

Phoenix - No pics of the finished product, sorry. The batteries are dead in the camera and I'm too cheap/lazy to buy more until I really need it for something. I do have one that I did in mid-process. This was taken when I had just replaced the stock bulbs with LED's. I wasn't happy with the spread at all and went back and redid it with 7 lights behind the heater control instead of 3, and added a few for the shifter and rear defrost/ECT buttons. Looks pretty trick now, I'll get some pics up sooner or later. This doesn't show the window switches, but those are done also.

LSUMatt1514

Toyota Punk,
I'll make you a trade offer. Me adding my name to the Speedhut list for your pics and writeup for changing the LEDs. Seriously, how difficult was the a/c controls, switches (seems you have to print some sort of label to go in there), clock, etc? I really want to do this, but I have absolutely no experience soldering and I'm worried about screwing up some of the circuit boards. Thanks.

Matt

keisur

you get my email dude?

Sorry guys, I wish I could but I can't help with the speedhut thing since they won't make a Manual tranny version. Otherwise I'd be on it like a fly on stink!

DuB

Here's a link to my dash...

The A/C panel was the hardest to do, because I chose to remove the entire thing to work on it outside of the truck. Wasn't too bad once I got it out, but it was HARD to get it out.

For the clock, I cut off the plastic in front of the display, and epoxied in a piece of clear plexi, and then tinted it with window tint. I also put some blue film over the display. Without the brownish plastic cover, the clock is actually very whitish with a little tint of blue.

For the switches, don't go through the trouble of printing out duplicates. Use some very fine grit sandpaper (I used 600 grit) and wet sand the back green layer off. I did that on my Rear Window and ECT switches. I screwed up my A/C button before I came up with that alternate solution, so I had to print that one. I didn't like the glossy texture of the overhead transparency that it was printed on, so I glued a layer (with epoxy) of frosted film over it so that the texture matches the rest of the A/C panel.

My headunit, conveniently, already matches the rest of the blue, including the wired remote (the ring next to the shifter). I tore the EQ apart though, and rewired it to take blue LEDs. That project was a pain as well.

I've been trying to figure out ways to get my gauges to match...
I got the silver faced gauges from procarparts, but I don't really like the silver, and it has the PRND21 on the tach because it's made for 98s and I have a 97. And the gauges from speedhut apparently don't work with mine either or you guys would be up to 18 right now.
I tried some cold cathodes (meant for modding PCs) and it didn't come out very well. Actually, you can see that it lights up the gauges really well, and it looks really nice, but my tach gets frozen whenever the parking lights are on, and the gas gauge now reads a 1/4 tank too high :pat: It still works, just everything is shifted up 1/4 tank... When it's full, I have 1 and 1/4 tank of gas

Oh another thing I did that came out pretty nice was sanding the yellow off of the gauge needles. I used some fine grit sandpaper again and took the yellow off, and then used some white paint (whiteout works well too) and painted them white. I think it looks pretty nice.

If you need any help, I'd be happy to help. You can post here and I can help walk you guys through it. There's a post from a while ago where I detailed stuff out pretty well. I posted pics when I remembered to take them. I don't have time to do writeups these days though because of school... Spent 8 hours coding today and we're not even 10% done

LSUMatt1514

Dub,
I have read Wild Bill's writeup on his site several times. For some reason, that page on his page is now shut down for exceeding bandwidth. Anyway, I've searched Ebay several times and seen 3mm, 5mm, and I believe also 7mm frosted LEDs. Here is a set of the 5mm that are posted now...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...category=26207

Is this similar to what ya'll used? Are the resisitors necessary with every new LED or just in some of the locations? Thanks.

Matt