Just found this site on Ebay and looks pretty useful if you plan on upgrading the lighting in the TL/CL's interior LEDS. Hope this helps someone....https://acurazine.com/forums/newthre...newthread&f=1#
Wish


http://www.ledautomotive.com/HowToGu...imateHowTo.asp

 

good find

 

very good find... thanks

 

I wanna change the LED out too..... but i dun trust myself doing it...........

 

here's a thread of the same thing on that other board. it gives detailed instructions and the type resistor to use. it's on a accord, but they share the same when it comes to voltages. this link is a repost. have fun

http://v6performance.net/forums/show...=&threadid=548

 

IMO, that's too much trouble for what it's worth.

 

I decided to give this a shot tonight-- The instructions for pulling out the instrument cluster are pretty good, but when it comes to the actual replacing the bulbs with LED's they must have just put in some generic info-- The bulbs in my '03 CLS-6 aren't anything like the ones they give instructions on how to replace... (well, maybe they are for the clock, but not for the instrument cluster)

In any event, I used a regular sized (not surface mount as they suggest) 500 ohm resistor and soldered it onto the lead of the LED and then bent the remaining leads into a "spring" and wedged it in the plastic sockets... there are 5-6 bulbs that need to be replaced for the gauges (not including all the indicator lights).I then sanded down all of the rounded tops to diffuse the light--

After some trial and error with the polarities, they all work-- on the good side, the instrument cluster numbers no longer are yellowish green-- they're a cool whitish blue-- all and all its pretty even (no hotspots), but apparently I didn't get bright enough LEDs...

In any event, I really like the new look, but with my current LEDs its nowhere near bright enough-- Off to ebay, I just purchased some 20,000mcd white InGaN LEDs (the ones I have in there right now are 5000mcd)... I'll post some pictures when the new ones get here.

_Larry.

 

Does anyone know the specs on the bulbs that are in the instrument cluster to begin with?? model number? size?

 

The ones that backlight the gauges are #73 and #74 (5mm wide base) at 3W each.
_Larry

 

Just to clear things up, the reason the LEDs look different from the bulbs is because the LEDs are much much bigger (the base is the same) than the stock bulbs for the gauge cluster. This is why they have to be installed from inside the cluster. Also the LEDs that come in this kit (gauge cluster) require no soldering at all.

 

Here are some pics of installing the LED's and what they look like-- I'm going to replace these with something brighter---