gauge/climate lighting Options

[cg97]

hey all,

ive been reading all the interior lighting posts i can find and ive seen tons of stuff, got my kind of confused, now ive gotetn that the 5matrix LED's are good stuff, but i also saw mention of some globe lights? and then i saw that some lights dont fit very well, and i was just wondering, which lights do fit? or am i just crazy and have no idea whats going on, if soembody could tell me which lights i would be looking for that would be greatly appreaciated, thank you

p.s. and yes im new and have no idea whats going on, ha, sorry to harass you guys

[celiracer]

hey CG, I understand your new at this. (WELCOME) Hope you enjoy this site as much as i do. The gauge lighting you can change the color with bulbs the LED's & matrix are really good. the size bulb you need is a 194. them will fit in your gauges. Mine fit right in there just like the stock bulbs. The climate control i don't know if you can change the bulbs but if you go to the how-to on your main page that will help you out also. Also there is a search that you can type pretty much anything about our cars and you will find out a lot of information. And hope i helped you out any..

[Zimluura]

hey dude, let me try to clairify. the thing about some 5led matrix lights not working so well has to do with the contruction of the matrix led.

they work like this:
one led facing directly outward and then 4 leds around the base. the fitting problem for the gauge cluster is when the 4 leds around the base hang out too far. too far, that is, for them to fit through the holes in the back of the gauge cluster (even though they fit the socket perfectly).

this seems to vary with the manufacturing run, so there's no real way to tell for sure. oddly enough i haven't tried to file down the (few) 5-led-matrix bulbs that hung over too far, but i think it would probably work ok.

because this is an issue (that me and at least one other person has had) i'd recomend purchasing the 5-led-matrix bulbs from here:
http://www.superbrightleds.com/1157.htm
instead of autolumination, this is s0olely based on price ($3 vs. $7)

the climate lighting is a strange animal, it is lit by 3 special toyota bulbs that you can't but in LED. spray paint or lighting gels (using filters like toyota did to get them green). if you're into electronics you can wire up various circuits of leds. what i did was take the toyota bulbs out of their twist bases, did a little work on them with a drill, and then took a num74 LED and built that into the toyota twist bases. i drew up a diagram for what i did recently, should be on here somewhere. the other thing about the climate control is under each button there is a green LED, to change these your only option is to de-solder the old one and solder in a new one. this isn't hard, but soldering can be daunting if you haven't done it before.

This post has been edited by Zimluura: Dec 6, 2005 - 7:55 AM