I just did my gauge in white with blue needle but somehow the needle doesn't come out like I want. It is really dark and at night, I can't see the needle very clearly at all, what am I doing wrong ? I'm using acrylic paint as well and painted it really thick

 

Too much paint....

 

then I remove all the paint and did a very light coat of paint, cover with clear nail polish and yet it still doesn't show up very nice at all, also barely visible, i'll take some pictures of this later at night and show u guys

 

The color you're trying to achieve might be hard to get. Are you trying for a dark blue or light blue? Cuz dark blue would obviously be hard to see. Light blue would be easy obviously.

 

so I got the wrong paint ? I really dont care what kinda blue, as long as it's clearly visible like the orange needle used to be

 

Maybe try a lighter color paint? You will have to put it on thin if its a dark color.

 

Yeah, I tried mixing the paint with a little bit of water to thin it out,, then did a lighter coat of paint, yet the light still doesn't shine through at all, guess I'm gonna have to go buy another paint and try

I got some blue acrylic paint at Michael

 

The light shines in front of the paint, not through the paint. A reflective color works best. For blue, use the Neon Blue Apple Barrel from wal mart or micheals. It works great. Put a coat of white behind that to make it reflect more.

 

what don't you know enginfineer? : D

 

^ Way more than I care to learn in a lifetime :D I just happen to have a lot of experience with these after doing over 40 of them And painted my needles a couple of times before getting them the way I wanted.

 

I just did the HVAC LED change today and is the word "Passenger" on top of "Airbag" supposed to lit up ?? I dont remember if it used to before or not. I looked at a few other HVAC posted in this forum but they dont even show the word Airbag lit up



Yeah, i know, the outside temp button doesn't lit up, the solder joint came off while I put the board back, it did that before, I'll have to solder that back later

 

Time displays... 4 ways work..

but why wont anything light up at night, nor any of the hvac controls work?? I attempted to do the swap, decided not to so stuck it back in...

 

That is exactly what happens when you plug an 07 board into an 05 or 06. Looking at your sig it looks like you had interior issues. Did you per chance buy another console? You will have similar issues if you put an 05 or 06 board into an 07.

 

yes i did... anyway to fix that?

 

You will have to replace it. I havent tried to retrofit one to the other, simply because it would be way more work that it is worth. It looks like you have an 05 in your profile, so buy one from an 05 or 06. Just to be sure, the 07 has separate lights for the passenger air bag on and off. Is this what you have?

 

Sit on the passenger seat without your seat belt on or push down hard on the seat cushion. It just indicates when someone is not wearing their seatbelt in the passenger seat. That's the only time it shows.

 

Actually if I remember correctly, the 07 board should display "Off" or "On". That is definitely an 07 board.

For the button not lighting up. Check your joints and trim the housing to sit over the wires and resistors you added. If you dont trim, the board will be flexed when you screw it back in and can cause undo fatigue on the solder joints down the road.

 

Can someone post a few pics of exactly how they de-soldered the LCD screen? I couldn't and just said screw it and left it orange.

 

I am doing one tonight if it shows up. I can try to take pictures and/or video of the desoldering process. If I have time I will try to do it with both the desoldering iron and solder wick to show how it works. I have been meaning to add a few videos of the proper way to solder as well to my soldering info thread in the tech gallery. I will see what I can do.

 

Ok great. My damn LCD has that smear in it but it's not cracked. I think there's a piece of solder touching two rods and it's reading 2 signals at the same time b/c everything works on the screen, it just shows up at the same time