So I'm definitely ready to get rid of the hideous amber lighting, I've got some cash burning a hole in my pocket so I need to make a few decisions and order up my LED's. One thing I've noticed from looking at the various pics from those of you who have done this mod is that some of the blues look like they're different shades...the red not so much (those all tend to look the same to me), and with the white, the biggest noticeable difference is how bright they seem to be. If you guys could do me a huge favor and post the following:

Pics of your modified gauges along with WHERE you ordered your LED's from...

and also, if you painted your needles, pics of those (both at night and during the day) if possible. ( I want to see as many different combinations as possible before I purchase my LED's)

I'm currently thinking I want the middle gauge (speedo) white, and then the left and right (temps, rpm's) blue. However, from what I've heard no one has yet been able to make a red needle actually look red at night when the blue LED's light up the gauge. I've heard that they end up looking purple, and I think it would look sorta funny to have two blue gauges w/ purple needles and the middle gauge white w/ a red needle. Has anyone done white needles or any other unique variations? Any thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

 

some pictures can be found here:
https://www.scionlife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=119903

most of the time the different brightnesses/color variations that you see from pictures are all because of the camera.

i bought most of my leds from lc.led.com, but will be switching over to the ebay ones soon for budget reasons.
the ebay blues i hear are a deeper shade of blue.

many pictures are posted on this site if you search around.

any other questions/concerns, you can ask me.

 

I've seen a lot of the pictures that have been posted, but 99% of the time it didn't state where the LED's were actually purchased. I figured that some of it was likely due to the camera used to take the pics, I just don't want to be unhappy with how my swap turns out because I made a bad decision as to where I purchased the LED's.

And as far as the needles go, I'm still unsure as to how I want to handle those...

 

indeed color of leds may affect how the needle will turn out. like how in the picture of the all red gauges.. the red leds outpwer the amber in the needle and thus the needle looks red.

as far as blue bleeding through into red needles.. there might be a way to go about that.. and in my head, there's a way to rig it up, but requires abit of work... anyway... here's a picture of mando's blue gauges with white needles:

seems the speedo looks fine whereas it looks a little blue bleed thru on the others.

 

I wonder, has anyone been able to make a red needle actually LOOK red when they use blue led's for the gauge?

 

Here is mine.
it has blue LEds and stock needles in this one. oh and they are from www.superbrightleds.com

It now has blue needles but I havent updated the pics

 

Heres mine:


I bought the LEDs from Lc-Led.com. I have white painted needles.

 

How did you get surface mount LEDs from superbrightleds.com? They don't sell surface mount ones for the cluster and HVAC controls.

 

NCBIGGJ - if/when you get a chance, I'd love to see what the blue gauges look like both at night and during the day...

scioncraze05 - got any daytime shots of the white needles? Curious as to how they look on that silver background...I like the blue on the left and right and the white in the center, that's kinda what I had in mind...

Thanks guys, keep 'em comin!

 

you cant c them at day..... or at least mine you cant superbrightleds.com <<< awsome company!

 

yea you can't really see the white needles during the day they look clear.

miamibuster69 - yes a very good company for regular sized bulbs but not for surface mount LEDs, they don't have them at all.

 

NCBIGGJ, that looks great! wanna trade me guages + cash??!

 

I know you're lookin for blue but here's my green gauges. I also painted the needles myself.
before needle color swap:



after

 

omg, that green is hot!! you're honestly making me rethink my plans for all blue.



careful with those sunglasses on your dash though!

 

Thankyouthankyou.
A guy from SE:Detroit came down to chicago and did the led's for me. Sadly, he didn't do the toggle switch lights for the AC/etc. I might have to go figure out what to do myself. So I gotta figure out where I wanna go for those led's too.

Hah, the glasses were only on there cuz the whole interior was pretty much gutted at the time. I never leave them up there otherwise.

 

Here get the surface mount ones from www.garage1217.com . He is a great guy to deal with and has them in stock. I would have used him on mine but he didnt stock them when I did my cluster.

 

Anybody know if there are warranty issues regarding this modification?

And has anyone had problems with LED's burning out? I think someone mentioned picking up some extras because he'd lost a few LED's due to heat? That kinda freaks me out...cuz I'm not going to be doing this mod myself, and I'd hate to have to keep taking it in periodically to replace burnt out LED's...

 

I haven't had any problems with mine at all. Haven't heard of anyone having problems with them except during the install. Guy that did mine had no problems at all during mine though.

 

the amount of heat created by an LED is negligible. I think he was talking about burning one up during soldering, which is quite possible.

I, too, am wondering about warranty issues, since you couldn't simply switch back if you had to take your car in for *gasp* an electrical problem.

 

Yeah guys, I'm struggling with that warranty issue too! I have someone that is willing to do the swap for me and I was super excited to get it done till I asked my boys here at my work (Toyota) and they started looking all panicked because I guess if you do do the swap it voids your entire electrical warranty! So now I have to think: Do I hate the Amber LED's more than not having any electrical warranty? If anyone has any ideas to get away with having the best of both worlds, PLEASE tell me cuz my boys here are out of ideas for me!