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Well, seems I overdid a repair job again!. I had those LED setup lying around but wasn't happy with the result. The LED's were blue (my bad) and seemed to put everything in a blue glare (see pictures). So I made my own setup from LED strips with 3 LEDS in a row (EUR 3 / piece). I fixed the LEDS in the cover of a mains wire square tube (I don't know if you have those and I don't know the english word for it) and fixed ths on top of a white translucent piece of scrap plastic, originating from old lighting equipment.

Now the light is white but I think I may need sunglasses while driving at night! It works far too good. I have to dim it or kill some of the LEDS.

White Lightnin'

So if I am understanding this correctly... you have 3 light pods of 3 LEDs each -totalling 9 LED bulbs?

Yeah, that is probably overkill.

It will most likely suffice to have 1 LED bulb in each pod.

You can also paint your gauge surround in an ultraflat, non-reflective paint and just have the gauges be lit.

Randy V

Looks like enough light to read War and Peace by.



Are they dimmable?

risaac928

That is cool...how did you do this....

Ad0911

Should be immable by simple potentiometer. Perhaps even the original one, but haven't tried.
I wonder if the colour will turn yellow if I dim it. I'll see.

I don't know about war and peace but reading the newspaper while lying on the floor with the dash as oly light source is certainly posible!

And how I did it? I think I wrote it and pictures tell the story too.

Randy V

With LEDs a simple potentiometer won't work.

Perhaps Alan will chime in with some pointers.

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The strip contains ome sort of circuitry that allows it to be dimmed. I tried it at 12V, 9V, 6V and 4.5V. It dims nicely down to 6V. No light at 4.5V. I think that anything over the normal 5V is tuned down by the electronic circuit. I have no knowledge of this but I see it at work.

Alan

Pulse width modulation is the best way to dim these linearly... so in practice - use Ed Scherer's controller - perfect for this and other LED dash lighting.

Alan

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Well, I found an easy way of dimming the LED lights. At Conrad's they sell a 12 Volt touch dimmer for LED's, meant for LED twilight lamps for in house. It has a small contact that needs to be attached to the frame that cab be touched to dim and switch on/off. I tried it and it wordks wonderful. Now I just have to find a suitable spot to make a "touch-spot" for the dimming. Could be at the area of the old dimmer. Something like a flat piece of metal covering the hole of the old dimmer. See pictures and the youtube film with the dimming clearly visible.

The LED's are strips, as shown before. They have an adhesive backside. I put them inside a piece of the top side of a cable holder that is mostly used for covering loudspeaker wires or other wires at home. The translucent bottom is a piece of plastic cut from an old backlighted sign for a shop. There used to be text glued to the outside, visible at night due to the backlighting.

Alan

So do you have to dim it every time you turn it on or does it remember the last setting?

Alan

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This is the youtube video that demonstrates the dimming effect of the touchdimmer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knJZW...ature=youtu.be

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Hi Alan,
That's the fun part of it! It keeps the last light intensity even if the power has been disconnected!. So next time you turn the key it comes on the same way as it was shut off last time. Als after disconnecting the battery.

chitown928s4

I bought a 14" strip of leds at pep boys a while ago for the 951 and hooked up to the dimmer. Looked pretty great. Lemme see if I can find the write up.

chitown928s4

heres a link of what I did on the 951...i eventually went with the white LED strip I found at pep boys...instrumentation looked rather sweet and not so bright it blinded you but dimmer was functional if so.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsc...ml#post3267124

Whitesands

Would sticking some kind of filter over the LEDs to tone them down work as a easy way out i.e. Plastic sunglass lens?