I have just installed LEDs in my instrument cluster (the 3 bulbs) and they are even dimmer that the already dim standard bulbs. They are working after I had to flip the bulb for the right polarity. I'm going back to the original incandescent. I guess the LEDs strength is not in conducting light thru multi-angled plastic pieces.

 

I used Superbrightleds and they are really bright

 

I took this during the day in garage

 

some people like really bright dashes, but understand that it affects your night vision - as dim as possible and still easy to read is what you want. Higher wattage LEDs will give you more brightness, just be sure you really want it that bright. On my new car, I had a heck of a time getting it dim enough.

 

I used http://www.superbrightleds.com/morei...edge-base/199/
White color and yes you can dim them

 

I guess since I tend to drive mine at night, I never understood wanting brighter led's. I always thought the cluster was plenty bright enough even with the standard lights dimmed all the way down.
Thanks for answering that question- I've wondered for some time now whether you could use the dimmer in an led swap or not

 

Alright, all of this is great info. I left off one detail. The LEDs I bought were blue. These lights were so dim that they were close to not working at all. I barely could see the position of the orange needles and the dimming did not work. I have ordered a set of the Superbrightleds in white, thanks for the link. So, I wonder if the low brightness is because of the blue color or if there is something going on with the dimmer? In any case, I'll find out soon.

 

I bought LED's from superbrightleds.com, and while they illuminated the dash really brightly, the do not dim at all and were just too bright.

I took them out.

I purchased a new instrument cluster housing instead. Expensive, but I plan on keeping the car for a long time, and the plastic has seen better days on it. Want some new shinny!

 

FIA-F1 - think about your dash this way. You need the lights at night. To maintain dark adaptation, you need to keep the lights at the longer wavelengths (e.g. red), that way the night vision you have developed is not destroyed by the lights. So, if you really want to do what airplanes and submarines and tanks and ships do to maintain night vision, use red - blue is the absolute worst color to use.

Then, since the LEDs draw a LOT less current, the existing dimmer will be ineffective - a simple solution is to build a 555 based PWM controller (you will need about 10 parts total to do this) and use the resistance of the dimmer to control the duty cycle. That will give you excellent dimming.

You can use multi-colored LEDs and with a little extra work, adjust the color to whatever you want.

 

yeah, i put leds in my cluster one time, then it started smoking. I'm going back to regular bulbs. The P.O. put an LED strip in the cluster it was so bright, i put my phone over the dash at night. Took that out asap.

 

here is what I used, $3.


1987 Red 944 N/A *** NOTE- I probably posted from my iPad, please excuse any typos, bad punctuation or odd grammar, if it is unreadable, it probably was posted from my iPhone.

 

Had no luck with this mod in my early 944. Burned out the test LED instantly. Guess I'm headed back to Radioshack to get the right type of LEDs...

 

sausagehacker - you do understand that LEDs are constant current devices, right, if you put enough voltage on them to cause them to light, they will always burn out instantly unless you have a means of controlling current. You can't just buy an LED and put power to it, it is not a light bulb.

Different LEDs have different forward voltage drops (usually depends on color) and are designed to run at a specific current - 20ma is a safe current for pretty much all LEDs, many will run at much higher current.

 

Yeah, I was thinking about that after I burned it out. I suppose I just wanted to see how it would react as a direct drop-in (since I have a crap ton of LEDs sitting around). I'll be spending actual time rigging something up over Thanksgiving break hopefully. I was supposed to learn about all this in my engineering classes... in one ear... out the other sometimes

 

just remember E=IR, and choose an appropriate R