Replace Dash Lights with LED?
 

Hi All,
A suggestion was made to me in another thread about replacing my dash bulbs with LED while I have the dash out. This sounds like an attractive idea. Curious who has tried this and what their thoughts are?

I found these, prewired for under $1.50ea...
http://www.oznium.com/prewired-leds

funny I was told the same thing. Just have not gotten around to doing it yet. I have read other threads and the opinion is to use SMD LEDs. The produce more light and do a very good job with the dash gauges. The come in blue, white, and red. I was considering doing it blue just to be a little different.

these are even better -


http://www.oznium.com/prewired-superflux

I don't see if it fit 1895 bulb house.

Just to be clear, your other thread was about the blue wire heating up , LEDs will not help with this problem.
Also one other note , I have read some LEDs will not allow you to use the rheostat function of your headlight switch.
..................:cheers:

Thanks Roger. I started that other thread to try to avoid confusion. I was thinking that the LED's would help avoid heating the wire due to less current draw...

If you mean LEDs in the INST lights then no they will not help the lt blue wire circuit.
The LEDs in the INST lights could reduce the draw on the dk green wire circuit however.

The lt blue wire circuit is just for the headlamps , do you have anything other than the 4 HL bulbs on the circuit , like maybe some foglamps or are you running all 6 filaments on your headlights instead of the max of 4 filaments the factory intended ? ( I seem to remember you did some fancy wiring awhile back .)

The rheostat doesn't dim LEDs very well. I mixed LEDS and incandescent. I replaced the center gauge instrument, cigarette lighter, shift console lights with LEDS. My rheostat will dim the tach/speedo lights and the turn signals work as well (incadescents). The real reason I went with LEDS was to reduce the current through the rheostat. My original was burnt out from what really amounts to excessive current. The LEDS greatly reduce current draw through the rheostat and my dimming function for the important speedo/tach incandescents is uneffected.

You can't effectively dim LEDS with a rheostat. The rheostat varies the voltage to the light bulbs. A variable voltage works for incandescents. For LEDS, you need to vary the current to effectively dim them...not the voltage. It's a little complicated to explain. It has to do with the LEDS being diodes operated in their saturated part of the I,V curve. Think I"ll stop here!!

I put LEDS in mine and have been very happy. I bought them from superbrightleds.com. As far as dimming goes, no idea, never bother to adjust them.

I've ordered some SMD LED's that fit into the 1895 sockets in blue. Hopefully they will arrive this week and I can post some pics after installing this weekend.

Who did you order from? :flag:

I ordered these because they are supposed to fit intot he 1895 dash sockets:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...=STRK:MEWAX:IT

Roger, I just caught your post about all the wiring on my C3. I've done quite a bit (electric fans, amps, MSD, fixing my harness) but I haven't tapped intot he headlights for anything that I can recall. I'll go over everything this weekend to make sure. Great thought.

Weren't you the guy that was going to wire the HL switch to control the low beams only and the dimmer was going to turn on and off the high beams via a full time hot lead ?

Not me, Roger. Interesting idea though.

My mistake , thats what I meant when I said "fancy wiring",I'll have to do a search and see if I can figure out who that was. :D :cheers:

The best way to dim LEDs is with a PWM dimmer such as this or this.

It is possible to retain the original dimmer knob too if you know your way around a soldering iron and dmm.

I am getting ready to replace my dash harness and am going with superbright leds I think they are BA9s which ones ddi you use the 90 degree or the wide angle ones

How many did you use? I just got my harness today and unless I am mistaken it takes about 20 bulbs and at 8 bucks a pop for leds I am going back with stock bulbs.

mine were $7.50/pair ($3.75ea) See my link above. They are 5 way, take a look at the pic on the other end of the link

Plugged in all my LED bulbs today and fixed the sockets in the console. I closed the grage door for a minute and they look great. Not quite as bright as I thought they would be though. Looking at them outside the dash they practically burn your eyes but inside the clusters they are very subdued.

When I get the dash back together I'll put up some pics.