making the Clock Gauge brightness match other gauges
Posted: Sat 04.02.2023, 17:38i started with a fun situation where both oil pressure and voltmeter gauges didnt have any background light on my NA .
the SE boost gauge bulb was also broken.
in my garage i had LED replacements already ready to go , so being all clever i decided to swap all the bulbs from the SE to be RED LEDs which the job went without any problems
and then i was going to use the 2 good bulbs from the SE gauges and replace the 2 broken bulbs from the NA gauges....
it turns out these bulbs are extremely delicate, and i ended up with 5 broken halogen bulbs.
now this is an issue because the clock bulb is of a different style to the other gauges, meaining that my LED bulbs are brighter than the clock.
so i decided to take the clock bulb out to investigate the size. and voila IT ALSO BROKE when was removed.
and this is the point where this project starts.
i have a broken bulb from the clock assembly, and a spare LED bulb that has the same properties as the bulbs being used on the other 2 dials.
the plan is simple.
gut the internals from the clock bulb, and replace them with the LED
fit it in the clock and hope it looks better than before.
for this particular project i decided to work fast and only track stuff using the phone. so the image quality is a little unpredictable, because in the phone small screen things look great, but when you upload to the compauter its a whole different story.
anyway. heres the pictures of the progress and the final result
the led and original bulb side by side
first thing i did was remove the LED chip internals out of the package.
then i made up a jig to hold the old bulb while i started to gut it
and removed all the glass from the bulb to end up with only the electrical wiring and metal case
one step that is not shown here, is that the ground wire of the bulb was disconnected while removing the glass, so i had to completely remove that
and clean up the inside of the case in order to allow solder to attach the LED ground wire to it
and here is the result after soldering the LED
at this point i tested the led again with the multimeter and after checking there was no short circuit i also tested with a 12v supply
video on imgur without sound
after confirming it was a working bulb replacement i just needed to make sure it was resilient enough to not short in future
the simplest way to achieve that is to use hot glue which is not conductive and shapes nicely aroudn the wires
after the glue cooled down, i used a sharp knife to trim out the excess glue around and keep it somewhat shapped similarly to the cilinder where it needed to fit
and installed it in the clock gauge.
and here we have the end result.
as you can see the directional nature of the light that LEDs emit has an effect on the gauges. which is annoying, and probably suggests i should be using a non-directional LED unit in future but the result is that all gauges show the same amoutn of brightness with that localised brighter area where the LED is located.
a win or a lose ? i guess thats up for you to decide. i certainly aint doing it again with any LED chips. as im pretty sure the bog stnadard LED bulbs from the 90s will give a less directional output. (not to mention are a lot cheaper)
the SE boost gauge bulb was also broken.
in my garage i had LED replacements already ready to go , so being all clever i decided to swap all the bulbs from the SE to be RED LEDs which the job went without any problems
and then i was going to use the 2 good bulbs from the SE gauges and replace the 2 broken bulbs from the NA gauges....
it turns out these bulbs are extremely delicate, and i ended up with 5 broken halogen bulbs.
now this is an issue because the clock bulb is of a different style to the other gauges, meaining that my LED bulbs are brighter than the clock.
so i decided to take the clock bulb out to investigate the size. and voila IT ALSO BROKE when was removed.
and this is the point where this project starts.
i have a broken bulb from the clock assembly, and a spare LED bulb that has the same properties as the bulbs being used on the other 2 dials.
the plan is simple.
gut the internals from the clock bulb, and replace them with the LED
fit it in the clock and hope it looks better than before.
for this particular project i decided to work fast and only track stuff using the phone. so the image quality is a little unpredictable, because in the phone small screen things look great, but when you upload to the compauter its a whole different story.
anyway. heres the pictures of the progress and the final result
the led and original bulb side by side
first thing i did was remove the LED chip internals out of the package.
then i made up a jig to hold the old bulb while i started to gut it
and removed all the glass from the bulb to end up with only the electrical wiring and metal case
one step that is not shown here, is that the ground wire of the bulb was disconnected while removing the glass, so i had to completely remove that
and clean up the inside of the case in order to allow solder to attach the LED ground wire to it
and here is the result after soldering the LED
at this point i tested the led again with the multimeter and after checking there was no short circuit i also tested with a 12v supply
video on imgur without sound
after confirming it was a working bulb replacement i just needed to make sure it was resilient enough to not short in future
the simplest way to achieve that is to use hot glue which is not conductive and shapes nicely aroudn the wires
after the glue cooled down, i used a sharp knife to trim out the excess glue around and keep it somewhat shapped similarly to the cilinder where it needed to fit
and installed it in the clock gauge.
and here we have the end result.
as you can see the directional nature of the light that LEDs emit has an effect on the gauges. which is annoying, and probably suggests i should be using a non-directional LED unit in future but the result is that all gauges show the same amoutn of brightness with that localised brighter area where the LED is located.
a win or a lose ? i guess thats up for you to decide. i certainly aint doing it again with any LED chips. as im pretty sure the bog stnadard LED bulbs from the 90s will give a less directional output. (not to mention are a lot cheaper)
