jriga

This has gotten CONFUSING. Too much info from too many people...

I found a great online tool for measuring what resistor you have based on the bands and markings on it...

CHECK IT OUT

It says I'm actually using 400ohm resistors. Now if I could just figure out if 400ohms were big enough for 14v of constant power...

Anyone?? Anyone?? Beuler? Beuler?

rbf351

400 is too little, u need about 560, but i went with 620 ohms just to be safe. i had a fight with the ebay guy too, and he was very lost when i was talking to him, so i gave up ordered 100 resistors from www.mouser.com which cost like 2 bucks

jriga

That's hilarious - I JUST got done reaming that guy... he tried to tell me he sent a spec sheet with the LEDs - UH WRONG ANSWER ASSHOLE.

Anyway - OHM's Law:
(Source Voltage - LED Voltage Drop) / Amps = Resistance
(13.8VDC - 3.1VDC (White LED) / 0.028Amps (20mA) = 382.14 OHM Resistor Neeed

Round up to be safe, 390 OHM...

If I'm reading this tutorial correctly, one LED would be safe with a 390 OHM resistor wired directly to a 13.8VDC source.

But your real-world experience speaks for itself - were you burning them up with smaller resistors...??

Wonder how much the brightness goes down by using a 620 OHM compared to a 390 OHM??

rbf351

with the resistors he sent, they would work perfectly for about 3 weeks then all of a sudden start to blink, then eventually die. the 600 ohm ones do dim it a little but not much

randomwalk101

please don't let SilverKnight sees this thread....he's a mod maniac and he will definately do this...hehehe

GINge!

You can polish the LED after its been sanded, the thing you want to get is from the nail polish aisle at the drug store. It's called a 3-stage nail buffer or something (I use it for model airplanes, to polish out the plastic glass, yeah yeah, I know).

Anyways, its has 3 different grits of sandpaper bonded to a flexible stick. The roughest grit is probably 1000, then I would guess 8000 and 12000 are the next grits. You can get a mirror shine on just about any surface with it. They are about $3 each. Once its shined up nice, you could also try dipping it in future acrylic floor was for a real gloss finish...but i don;t know if th eheat from the LED would affect that.

darrinb

looks good

jriga

SWEEEET!! That's what I needed... this conversion goes into full effect tomorrow... thanks for that tip, that will really help!

dragon084

whats the update on this

rbf351

mine has been done for months

jriga

I effectively ruined my sunroof switch -cruise switch didn't turn out so hot either... my dash is in a few huundred pieces ... the center consol is much more difficult than it looks and appears it should be...

My only real difficulty is that it doesn't look factory, or anywhere close in my car - I'd like to be able to say it was my procedure... it's not though... the way this has to be done to transmit the LED light requires removal of a film on the back of everything - this film is hard to remove... and once you remove part of it you start actually removing the emblem on switches...

I.E. - My sunroof switch shows a pic of a car, but the acetone ate the pic of the actual sunroof - looks kind of stupid actually...

Trying to decide on whether to continue or cut losses and buy a couple new switches and return car to normal...

RBF's looks good - maybe I'll FedEx hiim my cluster and radio...

rbf351

raido i have no prblem doing, but cluster takes time

jriga

AMorgCLS

Sorry that i'm late, but I just got my CLS and wanted to see some of the after photos if you guys still have any. I've been thinking of doing this exact thing to my ride. I'm hoping that the gauge cluster looks like the new TL, TSX (BLUE).

BTW, i've done a complete search and havent found any pics.

rbf351

don't waste your time or money doing it

here is what mine looked like before i put it back to stock

NOLACLS

Why did you go back to stock?

rbf351

it doesn';t look like the pic in person, u can actually see where each LED is placed and it looks ghetto, also i couldn't get the leds to last for more than a few weeks

chef chris

?

rbf351

the leds kept burning up, not matter how high of a resistor i used there was just too much power going through them and they died, if i could get my hands on a new TL, Accord or TSX cluster i could figure it out

NOLACLS

fuk that

Shawn S

You must have had something wrong with the voltages or it was spiking when the lights came on.
LED’s pretty much last forever if driven with the proper voltage.
Usually they die a quick death if given brief surges over their capacity.

The LED’s I installed by my HomeLink buttons in the CL-S have been in there for nearly three years without problem.
I have the voltage controlled via an inline potentiometer and they go on/off with the headlights.

Shawn S

AMorgCLS

WOW, I cant believe that no one here has done this with success, I'm shocked! Oh well, thanks for the pics and info. But, if anyone has success doing this, i'd really like to see the end results and DIY info for all of us to see.

There's gotta be a way to do this. That blue dash lights on the TSX and TL are just too sick to pass up.

chef chris

Did you read the post DIRECTLY above yours?

rbf351

the strange thing was that everything was working perfectly except for the gauge cluster. thats what made no sense to me. and it was only certain LED's in the cluster that were burning out not all of them.

AMorgCLS

Sorry dude, but yeah I did. He says that he installed the L.E.D.'s in his homelink. Unfortunately I was referring to the dashlights.

Did I miss something?

rbf351

i still have the white leds installed in my homelink, anything that already has LED's will work perfectly, it's just things that used regular bulbs are a bitch to convert

Shawn S

Yes, it’s a different area, but similar topic.

Here’s a “refresher” of what I did for the newbies: https://acurazine.com/forums/showthr...light=HomeLink

chef chris

Good stuff Shawn, but don't you do something similar to this in real life...ie:engineer, etc?

AMorgCLS

that sucks ass! I wonder what you need to do, to get the blue lights to work correctly for the guages?

chef chris

Just bustin chops.

AMorgCLS

hahahah, thanks man. Just starting to pick up on the humor here.

LOL

rbf351

get me a TSX, Accord or TL cluster to rip apart and i will see how they get it to look so nice, my brother won't let me pull his TSX cluster out

AMorgCLS

LMFAO, I dont blame him. Just tell him that you'll get his car detailed one day. Then take the car to one of your friends and get it done there.