Totally not happy with LED gauges
01-12-2007, 06:19 PM
#1
Totally not happy with LED gauges
Bought them from LED automotive, here a link to them...I think they look to dim and not bright enough http://ledautomotive.com/OrderInfo/9...lusterInfo.asp
Look at the pic thats what the gauges really look like. The needle on the left is really dim and there a hot spot over 120 and 140 mph.
are there any wedge bulbs that are like stock but alot brigther.
Look at the pic thats what the gauges really look like. The needle on the left is really dim and there a hot spot over 120 and 140 mph.
are there any wedge bulbs that are like stock but alot brigther.
01-12-2007, 06:30 PM
#3
Originally Posted by orgnlprankster7
thanks for the heads up. i was half thinking about buying them. now i need to find some GOOD reverse glow not shitty ebay ones
Well look at the pics If u like how it looks thats what u get....But I must say all the other LED i got from him look awesome I will take pics soon.
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01-13-2007, 12:11 AM
#11
rebmeM deretsigeR
Would there be anyway to add a few more LEDS? Or to even make something to better distribute the light, since there are some dark spots in the pics above? Not gonna do this to my car, since I'm really lazy, but just a thought.
01-13-2007, 03:55 AM
#13
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yeah I can see what you're talking about with hotspots on the speedo. have you tried shaving the tips off the LEDs to diffuse the light a bit? Another thing to try is to get some fluorescent lighting covers from home depot and make some covers to diffuse the lights.
01-13-2007, 08:40 AM
#15
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Bah, why does it seem to me that the LEDS are quite dark compared to just the stock regular bulbs and that meaning the Wedge bulbs and the Dome one but in the pics it seems like its real sharp. I've compared my stock bulbs to Polargs M4's and also the Led bulbs I bought on ebay and I'm about to try one more time by buying some crazy 9 LED or so wedge bulbs to compare. The gauge lights seem nice and bright on those pics but I guess in reality there are quite a bit of hot spots and its dimmer then regular bulbs?
01-13-2007, 09:22 AM
#16
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Originally Posted by dnd2984
Bought them from LED automotive, here a link to them...I think they look to dim and not bright enough http://ledautomotive.com/OrderInfo/9...lusterInfo.asp
Look at the pic thats what the gauges really look like. The needle on the left is really dim and there a hot spot over 120 and 140 mph.
are there any wedge bulbs that are like stock but alot brigther.
Look at the pic thats what the gauges really look like. The needle on the left is really dim and there a hot spot over 120 and 140 mph.
are there any wedge bulbs that are like stock but alot brigther.
Are you using the new LED's that they are supplying?
My suggestion is to cover over the LED with a Sharpie black felt pen to add a tint so you could tone down the hotspots. I know thats how I got rid of these hotspots with the old bulbs I used for the project before I passed it onto LEDautomotive.
As for the needles, they will be a little dimmer, but with a buddies car as a project car, I'm going to use these types of bulbs but take apart the cluster and strategically place Hyperwhite leds aimed specifically for the needles, and possibly add a flux hyper white bulb for both the speedo (around the 80 and 100 mph mark) and rpm (around the 4k rpm mark) to tone down the hotspots.
OntarioTL
01-13-2007, 11:54 AM
#17
Senior Moderator
^ I need to add those to mine. I want to get rid of the crappy OEM color/light
01-13-2007, 12:03 PM
#18
Originally Posted by randomthought
Would there be anyway to add a few more LEDS? Or to even make something to better distribute the light, since there are some dark spots in the pics above? Not gonna do this to my car, since I'm really lazy, but just a thought.
If I could add more I would,,, I mean there must be a way to
01-13-2007, 12:07 PM
#21
PLEASE do a DIY....Also I am not discouraging anyone not to by from LEDautomotive...Nate is one of the easiest guys to ever deal with.
Originally Posted by OntarioTL
Are you using the new LED's that they are supplying?
My suggestion is to cover over the LED with a Sharpie black felt pen to add a tint so you could tone down the hotspots. I know thats how I got rid of these hotspots with the old bulbs I used for the project before I passed it onto LEDautomotive.
As for the needles, they will be a little dimmer, but with a buddies car as a project car, I'm going to use these types of bulbs but take apart the cluster and strategically place Hyperwhite leds aimed specifically for the needles, and possibly add a flux hyper white bulb for both the speedo (around the 80 and 100 mph mark) and rpm (around the 4k rpm mark) to tone down the hotspots.
OntarioTL
My suggestion is to cover over the LED with a Sharpie black felt pen to add a tint so you could tone down the hotspots. I know thats how I got rid of these hotspots with the old bulbs I used for the project before I passed it onto LEDautomotive.
As for the needles, they will be a little dimmer, but with a buddies car as a project car, I'm going to use these types of bulbs but take apart the cluster and strategically place Hyperwhite leds aimed specifically for the needles, and possibly add a flux hyper white bulb for both the speedo (around the 80 and 100 mph mark) and rpm (around the 4k rpm mark) to tone down the hotspots.
OntarioTL
01-13-2007, 02:01 PM
#26
Originally Posted by VoLLy_1llusioNz
You got the Climate Display from Nate as well? Did you do the soldering or did you send it to him?
I had him solder it all....It cost like $75 for all the soldering. I got all the LEDs. in all the buttons to
01-13-2007, 04:20 PM
#29
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Originally Posted by OntarioTL
Are you using the new LED's that they are supplying?
My suggestion is to cover over the LED with a Sharpie black felt pen to add a tint so you could tone down the hotspots. I know thats how I got rid of these hotspots with the old bulbs I used for the project before I passed it onto LEDautomotive.
As for the needles, they will be a little dimmer, but with a buddies car as a project car, I'm going to use these types of bulbs but take apart the cluster and strategically place Hyperwhite leds aimed specifically for the needles, and possibly add a flux hyper white bulb for both the speedo (around the 80 and 100 mph mark) and rpm (around the 4k rpm mark) to tone down the hotspots.
OntarioTL
My suggestion is to cover over the LED with a Sharpie black felt pen to add a tint so you could tone down the hotspots. I know thats how I got rid of these hotspots with the old bulbs I used for the project before I passed it onto LEDautomotive.
As for the needles, they will be a little dimmer, but with a buddies car as a project car, I'm going to use these types of bulbs but take apart the cluster and strategically place Hyperwhite leds aimed specifically for the needles, and possibly add a flux hyper white bulb for both the speedo (around the 80 and 100 mph mark) and rpm (around the 4k rpm mark) to tone down the hotspots.
OntarioTL
I know someone else on here had a few additions to the 2000+ model since there is an extra bulb in the shift indicator. Just popping those bulbs will help out a great deal, but to get it without hotspots, more work is involved but its not all that complicated. Just a little more work. The unfortunate thing is that the bulbs I will be getting are not all available from Nate. Maybe once I complete the project I will contact Nate about it and see if he can carry them or even come up with a new package for sale.
Now dnd2984, are these the bulbs you have that I included a picture of? You didnt answer my question. And if you can try to use a black sharpie marker on the led and see if it helps out the hotspots at all (just dont overcoat the led, just enough to tint it). If it doesn't, or it makes it too dark....just take some mineral spirits to remove the black marker.
Let me know, so I can start on the project shortly as I need to order parts.
OntarioTL
01-13-2007, 06:12 PM
#31
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Oh one more question. i was wondering about the acura cd change/player, does he make acura radio LED kits?
if not do you think the honda cd changer/player kit would work?
if not do you think the honda cd changer/player kit would work?
01-13-2007, 06:19 PM
#32
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Originally Posted by ACURA`TL`TYPE-$
I WANT THAT SHINY BLUE DASH (A/C, stuff)
teach me how plz.
teach me how plz.
01-13-2007, 06:55 PM
#33
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Originally Posted by t0ast
to you
01-13-2007, 07:15 PM
#34
Yup its the new bulbs....I was talking to nate and he said just pop them right in without removing the factory blue filter....Will the marker make them dimmer. I really want the gauges to be brighter and alot more sharper lookin.....
Originally Posted by OntarioTL
Nate is a great guy to deal with, so I wouldn't discourage from purchasing product from him either. When I came up with ideas for him 2 years ago, it worked fairly well, and with time...a few revisions have been cooking up in my mind. And the goal was to simplify it as well so it doesnt discourage someone from trying it themselves. I see many here that balk at it when soldering is involved or it seems too hard and tedious to do.
I know someone else on here had a few additions to the 2000+ model since there is an extra bulb in the shift indicator. Just popping those bulbs will help out a great deal, but to get it without hotspots, more work is involved but its not all that complicated. Just a little more work. The unfortunate thing is that the bulbs I will be getting are not all available from Nate. Maybe once I complete the project I will contact Nate about it and see if he can carry them or even come up with a new package for sale.
Now dnd2984, are these the bulbs you have that I included a picture of? You didnt answer my question. And if you can try to use a black sharpie marker on the led and see if it helps out the hotspots at all (just dont overcoat the led, just enough to tint it). If it doesn't, or it makes it too dark....just take some mineral spirits to remove the black marker.
Let me know, so I can start on the project shortly as I need to order parts.
OntarioTL
I know someone else on here had a few additions to the 2000+ model since there is an extra bulb in the shift indicator. Just popping those bulbs will help out a great deal, but to get it without hotspots, more work is involved but its not all that complicated. Just a little more work. The unfortunate thing is that the bulbs I will be getting are not all available from Nate. Maybe once I complete the project I will contact Nate about it and see if he can carry them or even come up with a new package for sale.
Now dnd2984, are these the bulbs you have that I included a picture of? You didnt answer my question. And if you can try to use a black sharpie marker on the led and see if it helps out the hotspots at all (just dont overcoat the led, just enough to tint it). If it doesn't, or it makes it too dark....just take some mineral spirits to remove the black marker.
Let me know, so I can start on the project shortly as I need to order parts.
OntarioTL
01-14-2007, 11:55 AM
#35
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Originally Posted by dnd2984
Yup its the new bulbs....I was talking to nate and he said just pop them right in without removing the factory blue filter....Will the marker make them dimmer. I really want the gauges to be brighter and alot more sharper lookin.....
OntarioTL
01-15-2007, 04:09 PM
#37
I`m thinking about puting some LEDs in my car. I just got one question. Isn`t blue LEDs in A/C, clock display too dark, maybe better use hyperwhite LEDs with blue filter? The pix of the blue LEDs A/C unit onthe ledautomotive.com seems to be very dark. Maybe you have some pictures to compare white and blue?
Thanks
Thanks
01-18-2007, 02:16 PM
#38
Yes, I am really interested in pics of Blue vs Hyper White for the A/C, clock and switches.
Nate is really a great guy and is very honest. I am sure a solution to the hot spots will be available soon. Would really be interested in a complete kit.
Please post your pics, ideas, and results!
-al
Nate is really a great guy and is very honest. I am sure a solution to the hot spots will be available soon. Would really be interested in a complete kit.
Please post your pics, ideas, and results!
-al
02-01-2007, 09:11 PM
#39
Three Wheelin'
As an FYI, the photos of the TL on the ledautomotive.com site are from my car. I did add two additional 3mm LEDs at the top of the speedo guage, each firing 90 degrees to the side, to even out the light on top. photographing in real low light isnt easy but I can tell you the climate display is not at all dark. The clock has a slightly different tone of blue than the Climate display because the diffuser isnt easily removed from the climate display and so I left it in. maybe thats what you are noticing. With the factory difuser out, the LEDs become too spotty. You'd need to substitute in a really difuse piece of frosty plastic. I tried several things but in the end decided the slightly off color of the stock part was a better compromise than my test results with other difusers.
At the end of the day, after driving 50k miles since I did the LED conversion, I can tell you that any slight variations or hot spots dont really bother me at all. Its sort of like the getting window tint - the tint shops tell you not to stare at the tint but to look through it. That way you dont notice little blemishes (even the best tint shops arent 100% flawless, btw). I dont pixel-peep at my gauges (a term from digitial photography where people overanalyze the way a photo came out rather than looking at the scene itself in the picture), and they look just fine to me.
At the end of the day, after driving 50k miles since I did the LED conversion, I can tell you that any slight variations or hot spots dont really bother me at all. Its sort of like the getting window tint - the tint shops tell you not to stare at the tint but to look through it. That way you dont notice little blemishes (even the best tint shops arent 100% flawless, btw). I dont pixel-peep at my gauges (a term from digitial photography where people overanalyze the way a photo came out rather than looking at the scene itself in the picture), and they look just fine to me.
Originally Posted by torez
I`m thinking about puting some LEDs in my car. I just got one question. Isn`t blue LEDs in A/C, clock display too dark, maybe better use hyperwhite LEDs with blue filter? The pix of the blue LEDs A/C unit onthe ledautomotive.com seems to be very dark. Maybe you have some pictures to compare white and blue?
Thanks
Thanks
02-02-2007, 08:44 AM
#40
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So the pics that were posted earlier are of ONLY the bulbs that just pop in as a replacement? Or was soldering done to get the car to look as it did in the pictures?