Green display to Blue with Cellophane

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slickroger
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The door locks are not just interchangeable I butchered the doors circuit board. but here is how you do it

CHANGE OUT WINDOW SWITCH/DOOR LOCK LED'S

#74 bulbs -Gauge cluster

SWAPPING OUT STOCK GAUGE/DASH LIGHTS FOR LED'S


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Natedogg1701
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wow that is a detailed process to change out the door locks and window controls, thats a project for a free day. but what about the led for the dimmer, and what kind of led did you use for the P,R,N,D,2,1? i know you said its a 168 bulb, but i want an led that will disperse the light well, also the T4 bulbs for behind the climate control unit, that site you got your from offers a T4 bulb, then a T$ bulb that says it 30% brighter than the normal ones, but the one that claims it is brighter is cheaper!? which ones did you get? and oh yea, cutting those dimming wires looks waay better, i like having the clock and compas brighter at night. thanks
Modified by Natedogg1701 at 10:25 AM 10/28/2009

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slickroger
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Natedogg1701 wrote:wow that is a detailed process to change out the door locks and window controls, thats a project for a free day. but what about the led for the dimmer, and what kind of led did you use for the P,R,N,D,2,1? i know you said its a 168 bulb, but i want an led that will disperse the light well, also the T4 bulbs for behind the climate control unit, that site you got your from offers a T4 bulb, then a T$ bulb that says it 30% brighter than the normal ones, but the one that claims it is brighter is cheaper!? which ones did you get? and oh yea, cutting those dimming wires looks waay better, i like having the clock and compas brighter at night. thanks
Click the pictures and look for them these are what I bought. The bulb to light up the (AUTO,ECON, OFF) area of the HVAC required taking the bulb out of the base and kind of aiming it at the light reflector in the unit to make it look even.



This is the exact bulb I bought for the (PRND21) click on the pic and look for it on the site



Good luck
Modified by slickroger at 12:07 PM 10/28/2009

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Natedogg1701
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the bulbs you said you used for the climate control area are two different ones, the pic on the left is just a chipled, the one on the right had a little glas housing, which one did you say you used? and thanks for the help with the bulb for the P,R,N,D,2,1 light, i ordered it right away. cant wait for this to be done, its going to look sweet.

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slickroger
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the bigger pic

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Natedogg1701
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thanks alot man, i cant wait to get all these in and finally get rid of the green! just curious, for the fan control, did you have to angle the bulb like you said you do for the auto/econ/off buttons?

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slickroger
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not so much but no matter what you do that mode button will never be as bright as the temp and fan control but you can make it close. I tried everything and so did Qxxx4, maybe you'll have better luck

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Natedogg1701
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how well can you see your odometer with the blue light, does it have its own light or is it lit by the two bulbs that light up thw whole instrument pannel? and the led u replaced for the rear defroster, where did you get it and the resistor? sorry for all the questions, just anxious to get this project done, and done right. and ya ive seen some of Qxxx4's mods and they are prett sick, for the mode butons he drilled a small hole in that clear plastic that disperses the light and added another led, but idk how it came out. and oh ya, have you changed your dome light and back cargo light to blue led's as well? i bought some and they look sick, only problem is the dome light doesnt go completely out, stay on very dim, i dont know why. what happened to your pics at the bigginning of the thread?
Modified by Natedogg1701 at 8:25 PM 10/29/2009

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slickroger
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Natedogg1701 wrote:how well can you see your odometer with the blue light, does it have its own light or is it lit by the two bulbs that light up thw whole instrument pannel? and the led u replaced for the rear defroster, where did you get it and the resistor? sorry for all the questions, just anxious to get this project done, and done right. and ya ive seen some of Qxxx4's mods and they are prett sick, for the mode butons he drilled a small hole in that clear plastic that disperses the light and added another led, but idk how it came out. and oh ya, have you changed your dome light and back cargo light to blue led's as well? i bought some and they look sick, only problem is the dome light doesnt go completely out, stay on very dim, i dont know why. what happened to your pics at the bigginning of the thread?
My blue gauge lights show up pretty good i can still see the red needles much better than in my video. I had redone all the climate control lights after those first pics in this post, and in the video you can see there much brighter I didn't drill any holes and you can ask Qxxx4 how it looks. The LED for defrost is a 5mm and a 1kohm resistor any electronics store or ebay.

My vanity Mirror lights, Map lights, Dome, and cargo lights are all LED White. I had blue but they were too dull when your trying to roll something if you know what I mean

Ill take some pics and post

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Natedogg1701
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haha ya i catch your drift, and the rear defrost light uses just any 5mm led, and with the right resistor it turns blue? and ill be looking forward to the new pics, this forum has given me a new love for my pathy, lol. there are so many cool mods to do to them.

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Freyspath
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Your pictures are all gone!!! POST them again please.. newbie here and i really wanna do this mod!

thanks!

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slickroger
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My Pics?

They work on my screen

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Qxxx4
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yeah maybe your browser is missing something

as for my bulbs, i did everything myself. roger bought his LED's from a reputable place. I have bad experience with buying LED's and noticed when I do the setup myself they tend to not burn out on me.

My tip...buy SMD leds for everything, their the ones with little chip lights instead of bulbs. I used my own LED's and resistors for the climate control and i think it turned out just as good as slick rogers, but without modification, it wouldnt have. I still need to fix my recirculaton and mode buttons since their dim, but i think if I used a SMD led it will light them both up really well since they have a 180 degree viewing angle

as for LEDs/colours nate.....leds each have their own specific colour and run at a certain current. They have tolerances in current but should be within the range or else they burn out. This is why I used my own LED's and resistors wherever I could and hardwired them instead of getting ones with bases.....the LED's i buy that come in bases have resistors small enough to fit inside the base, and are usually specified for 1/8th watt, 12 V setups....really we need at least a 1/4 watt, 14V setup in an environment like a vehicle. This is why i do my best to avoid LED's premade. My dashboard lights were the only ones I have that havent given me problems yet, and those are SMD and they have by far the best light output.1k resistors tend to work best for me in the car, i used to use 500ohm but had a couple burnouts, but since i went to 1k im yet to have a problem.

My dome lights Ive had to replace 3 times since some of the LED's inside them burn out.....My next project is to add a shunt regulator circuit using zener diodes to prevent this from happening.

If done right an LED conversion will mean youll never have to change a bulb again....the problem is most of these led sellers that plop anything into those bases dont realize that cars run over 12V when their on..i call it dirty DC.... Voltage spikes, extreme temperatures, and constant interference from the rest of the vehicles electrical system....you need some tough stuff!!!!

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Natedogg1701
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i went to radio shack nd bought a 1komh resistor and a 5mm blue led, tp change the color of the defroster light. and there were 2 different types of blue leds to choose from, a 3.7 volt, 20 milliamp, 2600 MCD/ or a 3.7 volt, 30 milliamp, 300MCD. which one would you recomend?

Ryman
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I want to do the purple cellophane thing I was wondering do you just tape it on the inside with mailing tape? Or how do you set the cellophane up? And can you use basically any transparent cellophane? Thanks

Ryman
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BUMP!!

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Innovazn
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Ryman wrote:BUMP!!
.... really?

Anyways, as stated earlier (either this thread or another), the cellophane used has to be a certain colour to acquire a different colour. (something about colour cancellation or another) and from my understand you can just tape it up and it doesnt even have to be perfectly flat. Wrinkles will not show.

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Empty V
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Look at the color wheel below. You've got 3 primary colors Red Green and Blue and 3 secondary color Cyan, Magenta and Yellow. Notice that the secondary colors fall in between the primary colors. That's because when you mix equal values of 2 primary colors you get a true secondary color. For example if you mix 100% blue and 100% green you get Cyan. To "cancel" out a color you would go to the opposite side of the wheel. If you've got green and want to turn it neutral or colorless you'd move towards the opposite direction.

Imagine the green display is shown as the green section of the color wheel. To change the green into blue you would find blue on the wheel and use that as your 1/2 way point. The other side of the 1/2 way point is magenta SO magenta is the color that you use to "cancel" the green and turn it blue. BTW the farther away from the center your color is the more saturated it is and saturation also affects hue(color) due to the way the human eye perceives light. Theoretically color does not exist only the absence of light which is reflected by the object.


Ryman
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thanks you guys the useful information helped a lot

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Pwnin O'Brien
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Re: Billy and Kevin

Why can't we all just love each other and live in peace (or at least not flame each other about the color wheel)? I deleted the argument and left the informative stuff so it wasn't a total loss.

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Innovazn
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Pwnin O’Brien wrote:Re: Billy and Kevin

Why can't we all just love each other and live in peace (or at least not flame each other about the color wheel)? I deleted the argument and left the informative stuff so it wasn't a total loss.


thanks pwnin, i was waiting for you to do something keep up the good work

Ryman
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Did this the other day looks 100x better than stock green.... but I used real transparent cellophane that wasn't really magenta so i had to layer it a couple of times but not bad it looks bluish-whitish but only cost me a dollar at local convenience store by far cheapest, fastest, easiest thing i've done to my qx4 thanks guys

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Innovazn
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Ryman wrote:Did this the other day looks 100x better than stock green.... but I used real transparent cellophane that wasn't really magenta so i had to layer it a couple of times but not bad it looks bluish-whitish but only cost me a dollar at local convenience store by far cheapest, fastest, easiest thing i've done to my qx4 thanks guys
i did it this yesterday afternoon and same thing, dollar store stuff doesnt make it look too good.. stuffs a lil hazy but it looks better then green.

TheFinder
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does anyone know how i would make a purple light?
and how did you keep the cellophane attached??

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atraudes
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In regards to getting the light to spread a bit more evenly: use some sandpaper to rough up the lens of the LED (so that it looks frosted). Hot glue and tissue papers will also help your cause. Using a few more layers of tissue paper or glue can also help dim them a bit, if you're looking to reduce retina burn.

I used a combination of these techniques when I swapped all of the lights in mine, and was quite pleased with the result. I ended up changing all of them out (window/door switches, headlight height adjustment switch, HVAC, 4WD, shifter, clock, alarm, lighter ring, auto-dimming mirror, the whole 9 yards). I'd use the purple filter trick shown here, but I ended up switching all of the status lights (defrost on/off, A/C on/off, alarm, dimming mirror, seat adjustment buttons, butt warmer switches) to aqua, which matches the HVAC and compass colors quite nicely. All of the other lights are white, so it makes for a really nice combo :biggrin:

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Chuck Tribolet
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TheFinder wrote:does anyone know how i would make a purple light?
and how did you keep the cellophane attached??
Turning green to purple would be very difficult. Green and purple are on opposite sides of the color wheel.

Chuck


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