P38 LED dash mod

[Craig_Keira]

I hope this hasn't been done before...

I was a little uninspired by the green on the Rangie and had to pull apart the dash to fix a message centre bulb so I thought I should also have a go at putting some LEDs in there.

Pulling the dash apart is a little slow, but not at all difficult. I'm sure I'll be faster next time.

I went to Jaycar, bought LEDs to put in the message centre and also LEDs to put in the instrument illumination. I decided to go with blue.

The LEDs in the message centre were an instant fail. It did turn blue, but the LEDs are far too directional. I had three bright spots and two dark spots. I went to Repco, got the correct bulbs and also ordered some blue silicone bulb covers ($4 for 5). Temporarily, I've reverted to white on the message centre.

Jaycar's LEDs don't seem too bad. There's a bit of a bright spot in the middle of the dash. I think I can live with that. The Bulbs used were T10 4x Blue.

Here's the result:

[p38arover]

Scouse suggested filing the ends of the LEDs flat to change their optics. It's worth a try.

The instruments look good in white with a mod to give red needles.

[Craig_Keira]

Even better - frosting! I might give this a go.
LED Experiments (http://gotwind.org/diy/led_experiments.htm)

[p38arover]

That looks the ticket.

[zhoey]

What I did was to remove the filament bulbs from their holders, then solder a 3mm (maybe smaller) colored LED in its place.

Then wire in series a resistor on the feed wire for the dash lighting. The smaller LED means you would not get a bright spot.
But make sure you get the polarity of the LED correct when mounting.

And you have more reliable dash lighting, of course.





"TRIPE TRIPE TRIPE IS THE OTHER FORUM"

[p38arover]

I hope this hasn't been done before...

I forgot to answer that comment. Yes it has. A few have done it and it was covered on rangerovers.net - hence my comment about the red needles.

[Hoges]

I read the other posts on this but offer the following FWIW:

While I had the centre console apart the last couple of days re-routing some wiring, I decided to replace some bulbs in the HEVAC panel. I discovered Jaycar now stock frosted T5 LEDs in the holder ready to plug straight into the HEVAC back panel. No need for resistors or soldering

I bought 4 x T5 LED 12v "white" globes Catalogue number is ZD0384 B8.5D. Price was $1.80 ea complete (catalogue lists them at $2.50 but the cash register price was $1.80). As a comparison, a Sydney-based supplier of LR parts has the T5 globe holder (only) listed at close on $6.... each...

Only challenge was working out the polarity... 'spot' them with a marker pen and if they don't work the first time turn them through 180deg...

There's a small dull whitish spot in the centre of the HEVAC screen which now has a bluish tinge, but the 'numbers' are quite bright... even the book symbol :mad: (which BTW only appears on hot days :eek:) All the other signs and symbols are quite bright (again!) and they respond to the instrument light dimmer (except the HEVAC panel proper which stays at constant level of illumination)

Current offerings are in blue, red and white with/without the holder. Also available in T10 size

[p38arover]

Photos?

[Hoges]

photos implies "camera", camera somewhere else, phone is real phone which don't (I mean doesn't) take photos, :angel:
well actually I do have a phone which does take photos but it is somewhere in a secret building in Melbourne being manipulated by Telstra techs to unlock it from their network with a code supplied directly to them from the Nokia factory. They apparently got excited that one person in Australia still used a Nokia phone !!!!!!!!!!! (that's what I tell myself)

(Actually this turn of events falls into the category of "my propensity to purchase goods which fail....(several times) "etc )

In solidarity with our age demographic... will see what I can do! ;)

cheers

[marty_nz]

Hi all...

Fairly new here, but a regular poster in the rr.net forum. Originally from NZ, but now live in the UK though...

Anyway - I have done pretty much the entire dash in LED's - all the fascia switches, clock, headlight switch, instrument binnacle, window switchpack, HEVAC and the rear door window switches. (I've also changed all the interior lights, but they were off-the-shelf/eBay purchases)

To do all of the rest of them I've actually put LED's and resistors in all the switches, (white for illumination, coloured for when the button is pressed).

I've also done the instrument panel, so the back of all the gauges are lit white, with blue needles. Have also done the message centre so it is completely white.

I mainly used 3mm wide angle LED's (they were advertised as 120 degree) and then scuffed the head of them lightly with fine sandpaper to further diffuse the light.

I also added a few extra LED's to the window switchpack, so the 4 way mirror control is now back-lit too (the switch has clear parts in the arrows - but LR never lit it!)

I've done the HEVAC with the same wide angle white LEDs - but it still comes out green, as the colouring is moulded into the back of the buttons :(

I know things like this are worthless without pictures... so:

55794

55795

Cheers,
Marty

[FiveSPDDisco]

Hi all...

Fairly new here, but a regular poster in the rr.net forum. Originally from NZ, but now live in the UK though...

Anyway - I have done pretty much the entire dash in LED's - all the fascia switches, clock, headlight switch, instrument binnacle, window switchpack, HEVAC and the rear door window switches. (I've also changed all the interior lights, but they were off-the-shelf/eBay purchases)

To do all of the rest of them I've actually put LED's and resistors in all the switches, (white for illumination, coloured for when the button is pressed).

I've also done the instrument panel, so the back of all the gauges are lit white, with blue needles. Have also done the message centre so it is completely white.

I mainly used 3mm wide angle LED's (they were advertised as 120 degree) and then scuffed the head of them lightly with fine sandpaper to further diffuse the light.

I also added a few extra LED's to the window switchpack, so the 4 way mirror control is now back-lit too (the switch has clear parts in the arrows - but LR never lit it!)

I've done the HEVAC with the same wide angle white LEDs - but it still comes out green, as the colouring is moulded into the back of the buttons :(

I know things like this are worthless without pictures... so:

55794

55795

Cheers,
Marty

The cluster looks great

[Hoges]

Good job! I'd like to understand how you changed the colour of the gauge needles? did you need to paint them separately ...do they look "blue" in daylight?

[marty_nz]

Hi,

Sorry - I forgot to hit 'subscribe' to the thread when I posted, so didn't see that you guys had replied! Apologies!

There was a fair bit of work involved in doing the conversion - but I think it is worth it for the more modern look!

The dials themselves have wide angle LED's behind them (diffused with sandpaper) to light them evenly. You have to scrape the plastic coating off the back of them to remove the green colouring. (LR had green covers on the backlight lamps, and then green plastic coating on the back of the gauges)

This is obviously a bit hair raising, as you have to do it whilst the gauges are all in one piece, and the needles are pretty fragile (and they don't come off either - they are solidly stuck onto the metal shaft of the gauge)

The needles are lit by separate LED's - they have a plastic light pipe which goes to where the factory illumination lamps are, to then direct the light onto the base of the needle, where it then illuminates the length of the needle (like crude fibre optics!)

I cut the ends off of the light pipe, and notched them big enough to put a 3mm LED in. There are 2 LED's in both the fuel gauge and the temp gauge. The main speedo/tacho gauges are lit by 2 LED's aswell - but one from either side (each effectively lighting half of the needle's travel). I have also covered the light pipes for the needles, to prevent light spillage onto the back of the dials. I originally used black PVC insulation tape, but have since opened it back up, 'tweaked' some of the LED's and also changed the PVC tape for black heat-shrink, as I found some in my box of bits that was the right size.



The needles, in daylight, are clear like they are as standard, and are then just lit when the headlight switch is turned on (as normal) except that the standard lamps/holders are removed, and the wires from the LED's are soldered onto the pads.

I am currently working on a second one, using some SMD LED's and a couple of other options for the message centre which aren't so 'invasive' (I cut a whole load of plastic out and it's lit by 5 wide angle LED's to give even coverage).

As before - pictures say it a lot better than words, so a couple more for you..

56017
Message centre

56018
Green coating removed from main dials

56019
LED in the light pipe for one of the smaller gauges

56020
The main gauges with LED's installed. I also bridged the gap between the middle 2 LED's with PVC tape, as there was a bit of light spillage onto the back of the dials.

Since doing this, I have pulled the cluster back out and tweaked a few things. as mentioned above, I've removed the PVC tape and replaced with heat-shrink. I have also tidied up a whole lot of the wiring, and moved a couple of the illumination LED's about to give a more even light across the whole cluster.

I currently have a second-hand cluster which I'm also working on, to see if I can refine it even more.

Hope this is of interest!

Apologies for the small images - I have bigger versions available - but not sure how to get them to show!

Cheers,
Marty

[LoonyTune]

The pics look realy good. I am planning on replacing my speedo bulbs with LEDs (green for the information panel and blue for the rest). Can you advise how many and what size bulbs you used?

[marty_nz]

I used LED's to light the instrument cluster. The message centre needed about 5 or 6 white LED's with enough diffusion to stop there being bright spots.

The actual cluster itself needed 2 LEDs per needle to colour the needle properly, and probably 10-12 white LEDs to get an even coverage of the back of the gauges.

The new method I have uses probably 20 odd white LED's to edge light the instruments - which looks a lot nicer, and more even - and is less fiddly to do. The new method I have for the needles uses 4 SMD LEDs for each needle, but is a lot brighter than before.

I personally don't think that just replacing the current incandescent lamps with LED variants will work too well, as the LED's will probably be quite directional and give a patchy looking result.

If you do try it out, then post some photos, as I'm keen on seeing how it turns out... I could be wrong, as these days they are making LED units with chips on every side to give 360 degree covereage.

Marty