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I ordered these 10mm LED's off Amazon to replace the two 194 bulbs that are supposed to illuminate the Speedo, fuel, and coolant temp gauges, but are so weak that I can't see any backlight during the day and barely see any light at night.
To get good light dispersion, I used small pieces of p360 scuffing pad from O'Rielly's Auto parts to scuff the LED's really good. The LED's needs to have a diffused outside surface to give uniform light behind the guages. Them I hot-glued them into place and angled the in the way you see in the pictures to give best light.
Soldered in the leads.
I'm really happy with the results, pretty good uniform/even lighting.
When I get it, I'll paint the needles with Neon Matte orange nail polish. That kind of paint glows really bright under blue light. I'll update when I get it done.
They're not bad at night. My phone camera accentuates the blue glow a little, notice the CD player's bightness too, light isn't quite that bright with naked eye. The LEDs are 5-12v, so they are dimmable. However, my dimmer knob doesn't work very good, so I can barely tell that they dim, that includes light behind climate control. In daytime, you can see just a little glow so you know they're on.
This is the only Florescent Matte Neon Orange I could find anywhere, on Etsy. Any bright or neon orange glows bright under blue light I found, inspired from a watch I have that has neon orange hands that glow bright under the blue dial illumination LEDs.
It wasn't that hard at all. Probably the hardest part is getting the speedometer cable end lined up and clocked right with your fingers so it goes into the socket of the gauge while you're pushing the unit into it's place.
06-23-2019, 09:24 AM
