Sold on LEDs

[gwri8]

21 minutes ago, siteunseen said:

Can you help me sale this darkroom equipment I got stuck with?  I'll pay you part of what we can get.

 

20 years ago I could have.  I still have most of mine. 

[SteveJ]

I see the void Bruce refers to. Hmm, I might have to add a socket. I went a little further and put in bayonet sockets in my 260Z. Those sockets fit nicely where the old sockets did.

[Captain Obvious]

5 hours ago, siteunseen said:

That's the 5 panel led without the top panel, so 4 leds and you still have to dim them down some.

I've got a couple other camera options and when I get a chance, I'll snap some shots with other cameras. Right now my car is still in pieces. The good weather snuck up on me and I started too many off-season projects this time!

About the brightness... Not only did I remove the top LED (which really helped combat hot-spots right next to the bulbs), but I also installed resistors to cut the brightness down even more. I doubt other people would go through that extra work of putting resistors in though. I do recommend removing the top emitter. I don't recommend going through all the effort of putting resistors inside unless you've got a screw loose.

I found that installing LED's is easy. The majority of my effort wasn't putting LED's in... It was in getting LED's to look "right". And be brightness matched to each other. And have even light dispersion without hot-spots. And without a haloing ring around the entire gauge because they are so durn bright. Devil is in the details and that's where most of the difficult effort was.

[Captain Obvious]

4 hours ago, SteveJ said:

I see the void Bruce refers to. Hmm, I might have to add a socket.

You're welcome. Now every time you're driving at night, all you're gonna see is that dead spot.

Fix it... You know you want to!!  

[dmorales-bello]

Captain O, what a great and thorough job! It certainly seems like a lot of work but your lights look great, a mix of vintage green with modern tech. 

[SteveJ]

15 hours ago, Captain Obvious said:

You're welcome. Now every time you're driving at night, all you're gonna see is that dead spot.

Fix it... You know you want to!!  

When I get better, I will seriously consider it.

 

[Captain Obvious]

16 hours ago, dmorales-bello said:

Captain O, what a great and thorough job! It certainly seems like a lot of work but your lights look great, a mix of vintage green with modern tech. 

Dr. Dave, Thanks! I've got no green left though... My dash LED's look greenish in those pics simply because of my camera. In person they are white, not green. I really got to try to get some better shots...

3 hours ago, SteveJ said:

When I get better, I will seriously consider it.

 

Hopefully nothing serious!

[SteveJ]

SteveJ - I think I'll go for a walk.

Captain Obvious - You're not fooling anyone, you know.

[Captain Obvious]

I see... You just wanted a free ride on the cart, huh? 

[siteunseen]

7 hours ago, SteveJ said:

When I get better, I will seriously consider it.

 

Better at drilling holes in speedometers?

[2377kN]

I’ve read all the threads on LED lights for the interior, and here’s what I ended up doing.

I got a bunch of different LEDs and tested them out with the clock.  

To keep it simple so I did not remove the green domes, or alter the inside of the gauges in any way.

I set up the camera on a tripod and used an 8AA battery pack to power the light bulbs.  I shot in RAW, the color temp is 5000K.  I used the same exposure values for every shot.

Here’s a picture of all the bulbs I ended up testing.

 

 

 

 

Bulb 1

This picture is the bulb that was in the clock. Regular stock tungsten filament bulb. It might even be original. It’s pretty dim. The surprising thing is how hot the base of the bulb got when powered up for a short time.

 

 

 

 

Bulb 2

The second picture shows a bulb from superbrightleds.com.  

Cool 7000K  120°  4 Lumens.   BA9s

https://www.superbrightleds.com/moreinfo/ba9s-ba7s/ba9s-led-bulb-1-led-ba9s-retrofit-car/3/

It’s noticeably brighter than the stock bulb.

 

 

 

 

Bulb 3

The third picture shows a bulb from superbrightleds.com.  

Cool 5500K  270°  40 Lumens.     BA9s

https://www.superbrightleds.com/moreinfo/ba9s-ba7s/ba9s-led-bulb-1-led-ba9s-retrofit-car/958/2359/

I shaved the plastic end down with a Dremel so the bulb would fit inside the green dome.  Looks pretty good.

 

 

 

 

 

Bulb 4

The fourth picture shows a bulb from superbrightleds.com.

Green    40 Lumens.      BA9s

https://www.superbrightleds.com/moreinfo/ba9s-ba7s/ba9s-led-bulb-5-smd-led-tower-ba9s-retrofit-car/2077/

This bulb did not fit inside the green plastic dome. To take the picture I taped it in place with as much of the bulb in the dome as possible. The color was too green for my taste.

 

 

 

 

Bulb 5

The fifth picture shows a bulb from superbrightleds.com.

Cool 6100K     96 Lumens.      BA9s

https://www.superbrightleds.com/moreinfo/ba9s-ba7s/ba9s-led-bulb-5-smd-led-tower-ba9s-retrofit-car/2077/#/attributes/10855

This bulb is the same as the previous bulb, but cool white instead of green. To take the picture I taped it in place with as much of the bulb in the dome as possible.

 

 

 

Bulb 6

The sixth picture shows a bulb from amazon.com

White.      BA9s

https://www.amazon.com/64111-3-7020-Lights-Extremely-Bright/dp/B01MEFGAAI/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1505518231&sr=8-3&keywords=ba9s+LED

This bulb came in a four pack. I decided to try this bulb since it was cheap.  It’s nice and bright.  Close to the same brightness as the 96 Lumen white bulb from superbrightleds.com. It surprised me how evenly this style of bulb illuminated the clock.  I like this one the best so far.

 

 

 

 

 

Bulb 7

The seventh picture shows a bulb from amazon.com

White.      BA9s

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MQOXU74/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

This bulb came in a 10 pack. It is bright but not as bright as the bulb in the sixth picture.

 

 

 

Bulb 6 in the speedometer

Overall I went with bulb number six.  Here’s a picture of my speedometer with that bulb.  It lights up nice and bright.

 

 

 

 
Here’s a picture of the clock powered up and resting on the dash of my jeep.  Overall it’s about the same brightness feel to the jeep gauges on full brightness setting.  The dimmer in my 280z did not dim the LED bulbs at all.  It’s either full brightness or off.

 

I also put LED bulbs in the turn signal indicators, high beam indicator, and brake warning light in the gauges.  I tried a couple different bulbs but forgot to take pictures.

 

I don’t have everything put back together yet, but when I do I’ll update with a pic of all the gauges lit up in the car.

Edited January 27, 2018 by 2377kN
One picture was duplicated.

[SteveJ]

Very nice work, @2377kN!