Heater control panel bulbs to LED's

how to change one of these

into this


You will need;
Soldering iron
solder
side cutters
an LED (i used white but you can use any colour)
Resistor (560 ohm)
sharp knife
stirring stick (most service stations that sell coffee will have them)
and possibly long nosed pliers and flux (not essential but helps the solder flow)


pull the old bulb from its holder


take the resistor


And bend one leg over on its self



Solder the bent over leg


do the same with the other leg but make the bend slightly longer and solder



Take your LED and clip off the longer positive leg


solder the shorter end of the resistor to the clipped off leg of the LED


now bend the other leg of the LED so its the same length as the positive leg with the resistor and clip and solder


the LED should look like this now


Take the stirrer


and using the sharp knife cut a piece that will fit snugly in the holder between the contacts


now push the LED assembly into the holder so the 2 legs push into the contacts


test the assembled unit



and fit in back in the car.

if the LED doesn't light up take out the assembly and turn it round, LEDs will only work with + voltage going to the + leg.

Fitted. The light is fairly concentrated in one area and doesn't spread light a bulb (it does look better in real life than the photo though)

looks the same as the dash bulbs....you can buy led replacements on ebay, sod to find but they are available

lol...as you've found out... the led's sit further forward and does not spread light like the bulbs do...

You need to mount an LED behind every symbol with filtering to make it look any good at all...

here's one of my older pictures, but you get the idea..

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/4436/newpanelrl9.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

looks sweet, what did you use for the filtering?