DIY: Console Lights Color Swap

[Ocelaris]

I thought I would share my experience of changing my Dash console lights from their oem orange color to pure white.

First, a clarification between an LED and a light bulb. LEDs are not just fancy light bulbs, the technology is very different. Light bulbs heat up a filament (tungsten etc...) white hot, and a spectrum of colors are produced. Light Emitting Diodes are a different creature all together, they produce one color only, more specifically just one wavelength.

So you say, so what, I can just put a condom top on a Lightbulb and filter out all the colors I don't want. And yes you can, www.partsexpress.com sells the little colored condom tops for our lightbulbs.. however it's almost impossible to filter out all the colors you don't want, and when you do, maybe only 1% of the lightbulb's output is going towards that color.

With LEDs, you can not filter out color. You put a red filter on a Blue LED and you will get either no light, or only blue light. Why? Because red filters will stop all but red frequencies, but the blue LED is only putting out one color, as opposed to a white bulb which may put out green+red+blue = white. with a filter you get just one color... sort of, it's an off shade. Basically LEDs give you a pure color.

I have White LEDs... and White being a combination of all colors (or at least red, blue, and green), you say, but an LED has only 1 color... well, white LEDs are just a combo red+blue+green LED combined together into one package... Enough background, let's see it already.

[Ocelaris]

Disassemble dash. I'm going to jump to the specific parts. But you'll have to remove the knobs and buttons from the center console area. The knobs pull off, and there are like 3 screws on the knobs and 2 holding in the buttons.

Take everything apart until you have the knob part and button part. You'll have to remove any tinting that the knobs or buttons have. Use a flathead screwdriver on either side of the buttons to find a hidden tint. The knobs are pretty self explanatory, they're held on with something like doublesided tape.

[Ocelaris]

Ok, so I'll start with the buttons, as they took the longest. I used 6 white LEDs on the buttons, and 6 on the knobs.

Take off the back of the button module (2 screws and then pop it loose in the 4 corners). You'll notice the bulbs kinda screw in. The bulbs are connected in paralell, so they're not really dependent on each other. There are also 3 LEDs you will find, for when you turn on the AC/defrost/interior air. The 2 bulbs provide light for the icons on the buttons. 1 bulb lights 1 icon, and another is spaced inbetween the 2...

[Ocelaris]

If you want to swap out the LEDs for bulbs on a 1 to one basis, this is all you have to do, but I found since LEDs are so directional that I could only light 1 icon at a time because 1 bulb was "sharing" it's light... you could diffuse the LED, and might work ok. Originally this is what I planned, but ended up not going this route since I found it uneven lighting.

[Ocelaris]

Ok, so Now you've probably seen that I have Resistors soldered inline with the anode (positive) side of the LED. The Andoe is the smaller piece inside the plastic casing, also it is usually designated by a longer wire coming from it. The other side is the Cathode (negative) side, it's bigger inside the plastic casing, and as you might have guessed a shorter wire coming from it. Diodes only pass electricity 1 way, so it's important to keep your + and - straight. I'll get into which resistors to use later depending on your color LED.

This is the actual "button" that slides back and forth on the switch for A/C, defrost, inside air... the cavity where I hot glued the LED inside is where the light from the bulb was supposed to enter. I chose to put 1 LED per cavity/button.

[Ocelaris]

oops, guess this pic should've gone first... this is another LED before I hotglued it into the cavity.

[Ocelaris]

you see now the white button part is back in the black housing. Where there are just one wire is where 1 bulb per button. Where there are 2 wires is where 1 bulb was supposed to light 2 button icons.

[Ocelaris]

ok, now that we've got the bulbs replaced with LEDs, we have to replace the LEDs that are soldered into the PCB board with the chosen color LEDs... This is the easy part.

You'll notice the stock LEDs are rectangular instead of round like the ones you bought. You just need to sand down the LEDs to get them to fit into their button area. If you can drop your sanded LEDs through the area in the button they're sanded enough. Be careful not to sand down to the diode! You will find that some sides have more area to sand down than others.

[Ocelaris]

note on the front which side is anode, and which side is cathode... you just need to remember that on the back side.

[Ocelaris]

To remove the LEDs, just heatup one solder pad where the LED wire sticks through and pull on the plastic part of the LED to remove. It won't push through the first time, so do the other wire and try and push that through, go back and forth until the black button surround comes out with the LED (which is now free). Then put your LED in it's place and heatup the soldering pad to get the wire to push through.

[Ocelaris]

here's a view from the front of the buttons with the icons removed... you can see why we had to sand down the top LEDs to get them to fit.

[Ocelaris]

Ok, now you're ready to solder the icon LEDs back onto the PCB. Hopefully you have marked with red marker or something which wire is positive and which is negative. I marked mine with red magic marker which you can see. Solder the positive wire to the copper screw on pad, and the negative to the other copper pad. I've got them labeled for easy reference. Trust me, it was trial and error.

And that is it. You might have to stand the wires up so they fit into where the screw in bulb used to be, or the back plastic piece might not fit on correctly. Leave yourself plenty of room for soldering and just tuck the wires in, they're not in danger behind your dash.

[Ocelaris]

Ok, now the knobs. You hopefully get the idea of soldering LEDs now. take the back black piece off of the control knobs. You should see a PCB perpendicular to the knobs. You want to take out the knobs and the clear plastic piece on top that distributes the light from the Lightbulbs.

[Ocelaris]

ok, the next part is sorta tricky, there is a small PCB holding where the screw in lightbulbs used to be, and a two wires going to it. Remove the PCB from it's plastic holding it in (two wedges) and unplug the wire from the connector.

The picture is of the small PCB which held the screw in lightbulbs on top, and the big PCB on the bottom... wire unhooked.

[Ocelaris]

I used 3 white LEDs to replace the lightbulbs, one 150ohm 1/4watt resistor inline with the anode. Eventually I kinda bundled them up, seperating wires with tape, and hot glued them into place, which helps diffuse the very directional LEDs.