HELP!!!! i have the soldering down but i think i put one backward and so not all of them are lighting up. does anyone have a diagram of all the directions that the cutoff corner of the leds go? ....for the gauge cluster.

 

There is a thread out there somewhere with a diagram. If you are having trouble you can always PM NCBIGGJ or RJ, they could both help you out if they are online. I'll keep looking for it and post the link if I find it. Wish I could have helped more....

 

there's arrows marked on the board!!!!!

arrow points to (-)... cathode of LED... (aka, notch) goes to the end of arrow.

it's fool proof.

 

Can anyone give me any info on sending my hvac and gauges off to someone to do. I read somewhere that engifineer does that but i forget the details of it

 

ok i figured that was what the arrows where. i think i need to fix 3 of the ones i soldered. do you guys know, if one isnt working does it throw others off? the 2 for the lcd arent working, none of the temp and gas gauge are working and 2 of 4 from the tach! ahhh i hope i can get it to work. also, i order my leds from lc-leds.com but i may need some more soon, does anyone know of a chain store that would have them(lowes, home depot, ec.) thanks guys

 

Sorry for the delay in response to some of the pms guys, I am in Montreal, Canada for a week working. I am finishing up this morning and will be catching my flight home later today, so I should have answers to more of your questions then

 

ok guys i got 5 more to work. there are only 3 that dont now. both the lcd ones and the one all the way at the bottom right corner for the tach. i just replaced all of those too. any ideas??? please help.

 

did you make sure you didnt put too much solder that makes both sides touch each other?? cuz that happened to me a few times

 

thanks 87- will that destroy anything? i can try it when i get home from work today. i only have about 6 leds left though.... anyone else with have any more ideas?

 

When you solder, make sure you hold the led down on the pad (with tweezers) and touch the iron to one side.. touching the pad and the LED contact at the same time.. with a small amount of solder on the iron. This will tack it down. Then on the other side of the LED, touch the pad and contact with the iron.. preferably close to one corner. Then touch a small amount of solder to the pad and contact without touching the tip of the iron. When the solder pulls across to the iron, remove the iron in an upwards motion. You should not end up with a big blob. The move back to the end you tacked down and do the same to complete it. Never move the part in any way while it is hardening.. this creates a very weak joint, and can pull solder across and short them.

 

ok got everything in place and it all works great. i havent done the center console or the doors and steering controls yet. is it true i may need a resistor for the center console?

 

If you are doing any color other than red, you will need 5 added resistors and 3 replacement ones, along with some cutting of the traces and some added jumpers. Here is my write up on the process:

https://www.scionlife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=77876

 

An update for those looking for pink and purple LEDs. So far I have found nothing suitable. The UV leds are horrible for your eyes obviously, so those should not be used. For the pink and purple, the ones out are using an organic material to create those colors. The big problem there is that most are good for about 100 hours before the color begins fading away. I have spoken with two manufacturers and they both have told me that they arent seriously planning on mass producing these in the plcc2 package because of these issues. If I find out anything more, I will let you know. I do know there are a couple of companies that make them in other packages, but I have read that they suffer the loss of color mentioned above. A color filter on the back of the gauge faces i the way to go I think.

 

Most of the pink/purple LED that was released before was mostly colored expoxy....
I haven't seen any true pink/purple LED yet...
What you can do is paint the white LED with red transparent color... that will give you effect of the pink/purple color.....

 

I guess you haven't seen my posts on true pink and uv LED's. (I won't be doing UV LED mods anymore due to possible eye damage).

 

I had my shares of experiences with pink/purple LED... there aren't true pink/purple LED...
They just have colored expoxy to give you that color...

If you can find clear lense/expoxy in pink/purple LED, then I'll believe it....
Atleast you know about UV light that will damage your eye...

 

I didn't take pics of the UV lights, but they are true UV. the lens was clear - no color filter.

As far as the pink, that is probably what is done. Here is a pic of the pink PLCC LED's next to a pink 3mm LED.



But then again, white led's are done the same way. They are really blue LED's with a yellow phosphor.

 

Make sure to run them for a while to test. I contacted multiple manfacturers and were told by all why most are not making pink leds, and why even then they dont like making high powered ones. The best method to get true pink is an organic compound. The pink color has a life of approx 100 hours before it begins to fade out. I would hook some up running approx 15mA to a power supply and let them run for a couple of weeks to see how they end up looking.

 

my cousin hooked it up and did my gauges last night. we a bit in a rush to get it done because we broke into a school building just to there soldering iron (i will not mention which college). don't worry we had the right to be there, it was just that no one new about it . anyways, we got so caught up on getting it done that i forgot to mark where the needles needed to be. so with that said, can anyone help me out and tell me how to places the needles back into their right positions?

 

It's a good thing I have pics for such an occasion.

Click on the picture for a full size image. (sorry for the blurriness!)

TEMP NEEDLE: The bottom edge of the needle should be at the top of the temp icon.

GAS NEEDLE The bottom edge of the needle should be on the same line as the bottom of the image of the circle .

SPEEDOMETER NEEDLE The top edge of the needle should be a hair above the bottom edge of the 0 MPH line.




TACHOMETER NEEDLE the bottom edge of the 0 RPM line should be lined up with the center of the needle. You can also align this the same as the speedometer.



Here is a little tutorial I put together. http://ledmods.net/tcgaugetutorial/


-Paul