S14 LED Illumination conversion

Post by **Dano** » Sun Mar 09, 2008 7:58 pm

No, you did, with your lack of productivity.

Post by **float_6969** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 7:25 pm

I'm productive, just not on this car right now.

Post by **Dano** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 6:22 am

Yeah.

Post by **Enlefo** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 1:14 pm

Cool man! I did all the windows switches in my 97 maxima back in the day with blue LED's. I to have a black on black s14 but I am going with white lights all around. I never even knew the auto switch lit up lol. Here is a link to a hvac led walkthrough... in case you guys care to see.http://www.s-chassis.com/forum...c+led

Post by **float_6969** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 3:53 am

nice!

Post by **SketchyRollin564** » Tue Mar 25, 2008 4:34 pm

Wtf the auto switch lights up? Now that has me wondering, does the fan controll speed, and the "hot and cold" thing light up as well?

Post by **float_6969** » Wed Mar 26, 2008 1:52 am

LOL, yea, it's supposed to.

Post by **Dano** » Wed Mar 26, 2008 8:18 am

Yeah, only my fan speed lights up now. The the green 'on' LEDs for the different vent controls.

Post by **SketchyRollin564** » Thu Mar 27, 2008 2:24 am

The only thing that lights up on my AC controll unit or whatever is the buttons that tell you where the air is blowing to, and on the hot/cold slider, just the green line on the slider (not the hot and cold letters)

on the AC button, the light for the letters doenst work, but the green line under it when its on dimly lights up the letters from behind '

how the fck do you fix all this without going through an assload of work?

Post by **Dano** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 1:54 pm

Buy a brand new one from Nissan

Maybe you could send $50 and the unit to Ryan and have him do it for you, lol.

Post by **float_6969** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 5:50 pm

Actually, I just bought a DCC setup. I was thinking about doing an LED conversion on my stock unit and then selling it and getting cores back from people.

Any thoughts?

Post by **SketchyRollin564** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 10:05 pm

Nah, a brand new one from nissan would be expensive as balls. I just read a different write up on how to replace the three bulbs, and that doesnt look too bad. So long as the bulbs are easy to get and not expensive, i think i can take that. I have all the time in the world as i dont have insurance or a license yet, so the cars going to remain a garage queen for the next month or two

Post by **h22dats** » Mon Apr 21, 2008 2:08 am

nice diy!!!

Post by **SketchyRollin564** » Tue Apr 29, 2008 1:51 pm

any updates?

randomly, the switches where it shows where the fans are pointed decided to stop working, and now the fan speed controll decided to start working out of nowear...

wtf?'

as soon as i have a job, i want to re do the interior lights in red, or a very red-ish orange.

Is it hard to do the cluster the same, without making "hot spots"?

Post by **SketchyRollin564** » Tue Apr 29, 2008 1:54 pm

Also, what are the benifits of LED over bulbs?

If bulbs are less work, id rather do that.. but is it possible to do the bulbs in a non OEM color?

Post by **twistedsymphony** » Wed Apr 30, 2008 8:23 am

I did a full Blue LED conversion in my WRX before I sold it.

LEDs into your gauge cluster is damn near impossible. The reason being that it was designed for bulbs and the optics wont work properly with LEDs, even if they are "360" LEDs.

If you're doing RED that's not a problem though, use regular bulbs and get some Red bulb covers, they're little rubber covers that that slide over the bulbs.

Even with fat 360deg leds in my WRX gauges it came out blotchy with bright and dim spots because it just wasn't designed for it, I eventually put bulbs back in and used red covers.

Blue and purple don't work with bulb covers (because bulbs don't really emmit those colors naturally) but every other color in the rainbow works great.. with them.

If you're really serious about replacing the bulbs with something else, or you're interested in doing blue or purple I recommend getting an EL overlay for your gauges. There are some crap eBay ones but a really nice one will run you about $150 and will tap into the dimmer control to look and work like it was factory installed.

speedhut.com makes some really nice ones, they don't offer them for the S14 cluster yet but if get 20 people together they'll design one for you.

Here's a picture of my WRX gauges using red bulb covers (the factory colors are green with yellow needles), you'll also notice that I left my Blue LEDs in the odo/trip meter, the rest of my interior was left in blue LEDs because they worked well everywhere but the gauges.

If you're hell bent on using LEDs in the gauge cluster this guide is the only one that will get you a bright and uniform glow on your gauges:http://forums.nasioc.com/forum...24644be warned... it's a lot of f-ing work...

Post by **SketchyRollin564** » Fri May 02, 2008 9:47 pm

So what about replacing the lights for the window switch, and HVAC? Dont use LEDs for those either? use bulbs?

a lot of my bulbs are burnt out... are they all the same size and stuff?

Also, i HAVE to buy a bulb condom, right? they dont make colored bulbs for this?

Post by **twistedsymphony** » Wed May 07, 2008 8:13 am

right, use a bulb condom.

As for HVAC and switches.. LEDs usually work fine.

In general if the light needs t only go in one direction then LEDs are fine, if the light needs to go in all directions then Bulbs are better.

I don't know enough about the 240sx's interior lighting system to comment on which type to use where but if I had to guess I'd say LEDs would be fine everywhere but the gauges.

Also LED domelights are f-ing SWEET especially if you've got keyless entry. Though I would only really recommend it if you've also got a map light.

they sell LED clustered "pontoon bulbs" like what goes in your dome light... I put a blue one in my WRX and every time I hit the unlock button at night the whole inside of the car would get bathed in blue light... it won many complements from people. But having map lights too is really needed because sometimes you do have to see what you're doing and a blue dome light wont help you much.

Post by **SketchyRollin564** » Wed May 07, 2008 5:54 pm

hmmm... these were done by led, and they seem pretty good

http://www.s-chassis.com/forum...40228

that ones too much glare though... i dont want that...

thats freaking awsome! thats what i want!

basically, for everything not cluster, i can use LED,s and i wont get any hot and dim spots? thats all i care about.

Post by **KoukiS14** » Fri May 09, 2008 10:31 am

Man the red S14 looks just like mine. I changed the color by using engine paint, and just painted 168 wedge bulbs. . let out plenty of light, and was perfectly red.

Post by **Dano** » Fri May 09, 2008 1:50 pm

*cough* UPDATE?! *cough*

Post by **SketchyRollin564** » Sun May 11, 2008 10:40 pm

i guess this can count as a bump....

any benefits to using the led's on the HVAC as opposed to bulbs?

i guess if it looks brighter or newer thats cool, but i dont want any hot spots....

Post by **float_6969** » Thu May 15, 2008 7:29 pm

Sorry guys, I'm being a slacker I guess. I'm in the pool/spa industry and this is one of our busiest times of the year. I haven't forgotten about this thread and when I get back to it, I'll get it up dated.

Post by **Mycah Leonhart** » Fri May 16, 2008 11:08 pm

To answer a few questions.......

The S14 interior is supposed to be VERY bright - damned near EVERYTHING lights up in that car.......or maybe I was just in shock going to a one owner stock/virgin/creampuff '95 from an old dirty used and abused '89 Base Hatch with 300+K miles on it?

At anyrate it's been a little over a year now and well.......hardly a damned thing lights up anymore (just my luck) so PLEASE finish this DIY write up, I wanna X.C.O.P.Y. it but use Blue LEDs to match my gauge cluster. (pics soon)

I used random cheap blue wedges from Vatozone and **** was REALLY blue - Like Stock SE S14 Cluster it White Numbers/Orange Needles well my **** was Blue Numbers and Purple Needles that I could hardly see.......after a month they faded perfect shade of light blue/hyper white that I wanted in the first place and my needles are Orange again my cluster is perfect IMO.

But I do wanna redo all my interior lights in some sort of light blue.

Post by **SketchyRollin564** » Sun May 18, 2008 11:00 am

so is the advantage to LED that its more crisp and bright? The crisp i like, the bright... i like as opposed to dim, but i dont want it to hurt my eyes either...

Also... so no matter what, leds will get hot spots? this is tough haha

Post by **float_6969** » Sun May 18, 2008 5:37 pm

The LED's have a lower power consumption, crisper lighting, and MUCH longer lifespan.

Post by **Looneybomber** » Mon May 19, 2008 9:42 am

float_6969 wrote:The LED's have a lower power consumption, crisper lighting, and MUCH longer lifespan.

...and the 2 MPG increase! With today's gas prices, you can't forget that.

Post by **SketchyRollin564** » Mon May 19, 2008 5:52 pm

So its not gonna be too much brigheter than the bulbs? like i said, i dont want it to be dim and barley visable, but i dont want it to be all in my face either

where can i get bulb condoms?

Post by **crakin** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 11:39 pm

You need to do a step-by-step guide so others will know or im sumb and it it obvious how to do it i dont care just tell me.

Post by **Dano** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 6:55 am

Ryan's gay.

S14 LED Illumination conversion

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