Today I did my own LED swap. Thanks to Jeremy (GARAGE1217) for the Raw parts (LED's, vinyl, HVAC resistor/regulator kit). Swap came out awesome in person. Very Bright. These pictures give no justice at all. For some reason the white numbers look to be a shade of orange in the pics. In person, they're super white and the blue is hot looking. I decided to leave the needles orange (amber) after some long consideration. I had another set of needles painted blue and another spare set white but settled on the amber for now. I also decided to leave the HVAC screen amber since it flowed real well with the car and i'm going for a three tone color combo of blue, white and orange. I'll still be playing around with it for a while till i get it the way i want. Still have the radio left to do. Forgive the crappy pics. I'll take better ones soon.

 

Freaking awesome!

thats whay I want to do. I want to do the blue, and leave the orange needles. I just gotta order the LEDs from Garage.


I have soldered things in the past, like small electronics and such, but on a scale of 1-10, 10 being the hardest, what would you rate this as? including the HVAC. I wanna do this, but im soo afraid of over heating something, or really botching up the solder to the point of the HVAC or guages not working

 

Well if you are able to solder electronics, then you'll be fine doing this. The HVAC was the hardest with the new resistors because they are so tiny. But a steady hand and tweezers will get them on. Don't worry about overheating the board, its strong. I left the iron on it for a while at one point and it didnt overheat anything. Since you have some experience, I'd say its a 5 or so. Not to hard. The gauges are the easiest, HVAC is the next hardest due to the resistors, and the Radio is the hardest due to havigng around 40 tiny @$$ LEDs to put on. Just try it, you wont overheat anything if you have some soldering experience. Let me know if you need more help or have more questions. I'll be watching the post closely. Later

 

alright!

that's some sweeet stuff

 

I like it I still love my swap though and cant wait till I see it again!

 

Thanks Squall. It looks way better in person. Incase anyones wondering why my LCD screens are both different colors, its because i've settled on a three tone design. The radio will be the final part and have a blue LCD screen and mixed colors for buttons and ***** between amber, white, and blue. The screens will represent the 3 different colors used. Thanks again for the comments guys.

HEY equinox2355, whats your swap look like. got any pics or can u describe it. Did you do it yourself or ship it out?

thanks man

 

did u install the LED in the cup holder in the back seat? I just want to install those LED in , but i haven't known how to take it out.

 

oooh.. going for the radio eh?? good luck!

ohh.. and i did equinox's gauges... lol. it's an ocean-like aura to it.. with the fading colors of blue and green.

one of my pics in my gif should give you an idea.

 

looking good! yet vaguely familiar... j/p

 

Hey sorry if it looks like i stole any ideas from anyone. I didnt or at least didnt try to. Looked at some of your guys gauges in your profiles and they all look amazing. Nice work to everyone. Hey squall, i saw your GIF of the gauges. They look real sweet. Nice work man and SQAULL, im gonna need luck for the radio. We'll see how it comes out.

OOO. and yes i have blue LEDs in my cupholders and i embeded some into my side panels in the footwells and also in the glove compartment. Picture came out crappy and for some reason doesnt show the passenger side footwell lights. They are also brighter in person yet not to bright as to blind me or anyone else. They're perfect looking to me. They are all LED blue and wired to 2 different 3 different switches that i've placed in the car.

 

ehh.. pretty much whatever ideas that get posted online... it's up to get "stolen"

as people say.. "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery"

of course though for that to be truly sincere, it would be nice to make sure whoever gets imitated to know they are... as so they know they are the ones being flattered.. lol

 

very true squall. We shouldn't post ideas and pics if we didnt mind them being taken.

 

very nice.

 

someone watched pirates of the carribean.. lol


anyway scionjim.. are those your rocker switches on the left? those super bright blue lights?

 

yes those are 2 rocker switches on the left with blue LEDs. i also have one more switch mounted near the e-brake (custom fitted-fits in e-brake cutout perfect) for the cupholder LEDs since i thought it was more convienent there.

 

Looks good. Are you going to change the HVAC LCD color as well?

 

I dont know yet. It kinda looks cool in person being orange. I was gonna do each of the LCDs(ODO, radio, HVAC) each a different color representing each color used in the three tone swap (white for ODO, Orange for HVAC, blue for Radio). We'll see if i leave it that way or make them all white.

 

i kinda like the orange there.. it does match well with the needles.. maybe a reverse LCD would look cool too.

 

Yea reversing the LCDs was an idea i was pondering also. Im just up in the air as of right now as to what i want to do with them. For now i think it will stay orange or i'll change it to white.

 

Good work. Looks great!

Most of us doing swaps freely post the info up on here. I dont think anyone feels bad about someone "copying" anything. Enjoy!