JLJ11

Anyone have a solution for bright LED's on a older 911 dash? I can barely see the tach at night and thought the recent posts in the 993 forum on superbrightled's dash solution was pretty cool. Couldnt find this being covered already but apologies if its already been done.

https://rennlist.com/forums/showthre...ferrerid=95473

I guess going bright might upset some of the traditionalists but im making a 37 year old car my daily driver so a few things have to be brought up to speed.

Any help appreciated as always. hope everyone having a good start to the new year.

theiceman

Not really into Bling so i guess i woukd be in the traditionalist camp but i do understand your concern. I would start off with new bulbs and if that doesnt do it go from there.

JLJ11

yeah im not looking for bling..just want to be able to see what the heck is going on at night time.. they do an off white LED that is decently bright for daily driving without making it look too modern.. just not sure if would work on a 930 dash.

theiceman

not sure about that vendor but i bet it would in general terms. i have seen it done and it looks very bright ..

Toby Pennycuff

If you plan to have your dash instruments refurbished, send them to North Hollywood Speedometer. Not only can they recondition your stock VDO instruments, they can also add an LED package to them that works very nicely. It's going to be more expensive than buying the LED bulbs referenced in the aforementioned post, but NHS does a very nice job, and the LED upgrade is a noticeable improvement in terms of instrument visibility.

Toby

Reiver

Go to the Pelican siteand search...a a guy there sells them and he makes some in dif shades (classic) that is brighter but looks more stock in an older car.

JLJ11

perfect, thks vm

kuba_kuba

I think the username of the guy who sells them over at Pelican is etarga or e_targa...

SPDADCT

+1 for NHS!

tulliotk

Aren't the 993 gauges backlit? Can you convert an earlier gauge or do you have to replace the entire gauge?

Todd Kuzma

wildcat077

Yup,guy's user name is ETarga ... i installed some of his LED gauge bulbs,actually replaced all my gauge bulbs with his and i'm very satisfied.
There's a 20 page thread of satisfied customers on the Pelican forums regarding his LED bulb replacements.

Cheers !
Phil

froggert

i got mine from etarga. first set i tried were the red led's. looked cool as heck, but no brighter than the stock bulbs. swapped them for the vintage white ones and my gauges are now usable at night.

wwest

There is an innate problem with the use of LEDs (bulb, chip, element) and a 12 volt power source. Most LED chips/elements operate best, BRIGHTEST, at less than 5 volts applied, most at ~3 volts or even <2 volts.

To get a given LED to operate at a reasonable brightness level requires some sort of voltage dropping device/element/resistor at the LED rate current flow. That, in turn, often means using a POWER resistor of as much as 5 watts.

Almost ALL vendors, superbrightleds inclusive, compromise on the matter and operate the LED element at a current flow far below the rated value. They typically mount a tiny LOW power voltage dropping resistor within the bulb base.

Not good, NO good.

Then that is the other vendors, the ones with no or few ethics. Designed to FAIL LEDs. Use a small but under rated resistance, PRONE to fail resistance, to operate the LED at rated current flow.

Buy an inexpensive MR16 LED from Ebay, take it apart and see the level of electronics design sophistication required.

Personally I used a 56 ohm 3W resistor mounted in series, externally, in each individual bulb wire to power my instrumentation 1W (3.2 volts/ 0.3 amps) LED bulbs. I tried several LED colors before settling on RED..due to my GA background. Otherwise I would recommend the warm white, 4300K or less.

PWM dimmers for 12 volt DC systems are now readily available in the marketplace.