Technical Changing Instrument Panel LEDs

[mzhussein]

peoples, we have a mistake in the midst......

there are TWO different types of LED used in the stilo.

one is the 3528 footprint and the other is the 1206 footprint....

3528 is used on:
- Window controls
- mirror controls
- panel by driver

1206 is used on:
- dash leds
- internal light switch leds

you can get away with using 3528 on all EXCEPT in the dash....if you use them in the dash (especially behind the LCD) you will get three distinct bright spots...the correct LEDs are 1206. the difference is the angle of light spread and the light output. the 3528 LEDs have too high an intensity and the spread is too narrow. you need to use the 1026 to make it looks OEM....my dash has been done with 3528, and ive just ordered some 1206 to re-do it because it is really bugging me....

btw still haven't got to the bottom of the window controls only half lighting up.

 

[Marshall147]

peoples, we have a mistake in the midst......

there are TWO different types of LED used in the stilo.

one is the 3528 footprint and the other is the 1206 footprint....

3528 is used on:
- Window controls
- mirror controls
- panel by driver

1206 is used on:
- dash leds
- internal light switch leds

you can get away with using 3528 on all EXCEPT in the dash....if you use them in the dash (especially behind the LCD) you will get three distinct bright spots...the correct LEDs are 1206. the difference is the angle of light spread and the light output. the 3528 LEDs have too high an intensity and the spread is too narrow. you need to use the 1026 to make it looks OEM....my dash has been done with 3528, and ive just ordered some 1206 to re-do it because it is really bugging me....

btw still haven't got to the bottom of the window controls only half lighting up.

I done everything except the dash, which i will be doing tomorrow, do you recon it will look a little better if i use blue for the LCD panel as they are slightly dimmer than the white. are the bright spots really bad?

 

[mzhussein]

yes the bright spots are really bad (others might not think so, but i am picky, to me they're not tollerable!)...order up some 1206 white leds and do it properly, you wont regret it, also on the actual dials you get "light spots" where the individual LEDs are aswell as on the screen, it just looks a bit un-professional.....all the other buttons with 1206 you can get away with putting 3528, theyll just be a bit too bright and a little bit of a distraction at night, but they doo look uber cool ...also i dont think a blue LCD looks as "luxury" as a white one, blue can look a bit "chaved out"

 

[Marshall147]

yes the bright spots are really bad (others might not think so, but i am picky, to me they're not tollerable!)...order up some 1206 white leds and do it properly, you wont regret it, also on the actual dials you get "light spots" where the individual LEDs are aswell as on the screen, it just looks a bit un-professional.....all the other buttons with 1206 you can get away with putting 3528, theyll just be a bit too bright and a little bit of a distraction at night, but they doo look uber cool ...also i dont think a blue LCD looks as "luxury" as a white one, blue can look a bit "chaved out"

Cheers for the advice, ill order some of those then. I think im going to stick with the blue screen as i think it will go well with the white dials, plus iv done my lock button and a few other buttons in blue. Ill post up the pics when iv done everything

 

[Marshall147]

mzhussein, have you tried using the dimmer buttons to dim the dash lights? doesnt the light spots go away if you dim the dash lights down a little or are they still visible?

 

[mzhussein]

i have tried it yes....blue should look ok as long as there are other blue accents....

the trouble with the dimmer is, it dims the whole screen equally, so the spots get darker, but equally so do the darker bits around them. you still have the same contrast, just the whole lot is dimmer....its to do with the light angle output of the LEDs, the 3528 is too narrow to use as a backlight

anyone done the heater controls yet? was going to do them today, but the guide seems to indicate they're bulbs not LEDs?

 

[Marshall147]

i have tried it yes....blue should look ok as long as there are other blue accents....

the trouble with the dimmer is, it dims the whole screen equally, so the spots get darker, but equally so do the darker bits around them. you still have the same contrast, just the whole lot is dimmer....its to do with the light angle output of the LEDs, the 3528 is too narrow to use as a backlight

anyone done the heater controls yet? was going to do them today, but the guide seems to indicate they're bulbs not LEDs?

yeh i get what you mean, well iv ordered the LED's that you said to get, so hopefully it will look good when i do it.

yes, if your car doesnt have climate control, they are bulbs :/ . don't no how I'm going to get round it. going to have a look at it tonight. I'm pretty sure its an orange skin they put on the unit it self.

 

[mzhussein]

is there any way to "remove" this orange skin, id be interested to know what you think after taking a look....im going to dismantle mine this weekend, mines a bit harder cos i have to take out my touch screen for the CarPC first.....

 

[Marshall147]

is there any way to "remove" this orange skin, id be interested to know what you think after taking a look....im going to dismantle mine this weekend, mines a bit harder cos i have to take out my touch screen for the CarPC first.....

BAD NEWS!

the skin is painted on and it doesnt come off!
i even tried a bit of thinners in a small section but it just seems to take the orange off and the symbols and numbers off!

dont no how we can get round this, unless you can get a bulb of a certain colour to counter balance the colour level to white....?

 

[mzhussein]

i dont quite understand....

from the outside the numbers are white, so that must mean the skin is on the inside.

the only way i can see that thinners would damage the numbers/symbols is if you used thinners on the outside...prehaps i need to dismantle it to properly get an overview.

and no, you cant "counter balance" the orange

 

[Marshall147]

all ill say it good luck!

i thought the same about the thinners, but when i was rubbing away at it, it first took the orange off then i realised the symbol it self was rubbing away, which i couldnt understand either. there must be VERY thin laters. It appears there is an orange/white/black layers .

 

[mzhussein]

just re-did all the LEDs in the car with white, instead of warm white in my lunch break, it looked too yellow and used the correct mix of 3528 and 1206 LED....and my drivers side widnow pannel now lights up!

@Marshall147: going to have a good and propper look this weekend at the heater panel, see if i can come up with anything, did you do your dash witht the 1206? (i haven't done it yet still waiting for the time).....how did you find the soldering iron btw?

 

[Marshall147]

Yehh mine is blue but mainly white. I like the white better than the warm white. No i havent done the dash yet, i'm still awaiting on the 1206 leds from china :/. And yehh the new soldering iron is ace to work with compared to the old one. Cheers for the info on that.

Also, when i did the switch panels i didnt use any solder, i just used what was on the original circuit boarrds. I think i might get soome for the dash. What would u recomend? Or will any solder do ?

 

[mzhussein]

yeah the warm white ended up a bit too yellow, i was hoping for white with cream tint, but it wasn't

china! lol i couldn't be bothered to wait that long....all mine have been from UK....no problem, its a goodun, will last a long time.

hmmm, in my profession as a rule we NEVER re-use solder, as after being applied it looses the impregnated flux and the more times it is re-worked the more susceptible it is to cracking....any fine gauge solder will do.

this is fine:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/FINE-LOW-MELT...Home_Garden_PowerTools_SM&hash=item53e6e3e70d

I use solder wick to extract the old solder, and to clean up the pads, then apply fresh stuff to one pad, drop the LED on it, once its stuck to that pad, add a little solder to the other pad...this method, for me, one LED takes less than one minute.

type "solder wick"on youtube, it'll show you how to use it....once my boards are done, you cant tell they have been fiddled with, thats what you should aim for. also its good practise to clean up solder work with IPA solvent to ensure there are no contaminants left on the board....

 

[afiLi]

mzhussein what happened

 

[mzhussein]

ive been very busy sorting out other things to worry about the LEDs for now, they are currently half white half warm white...was hoping to get them done before Brooklands, but not possible.

 

[Dexterko]

Hi guys, I've done this before on my friend's Megane 2, and am doing it on my brother's Stilo sometime next week...only thing concerning me is that I've red somewhere that you can damage the servo motors if you remove the needles, but I see that you all have done it, and frankly I was quite rough removing the needles from the Megan's gauges and they work just fine...so should I be worried about damaging the servos?

Here's the pic BTW... :spin:
It was all ugly orange but we changed it to white/red combo...

 

[Octavus]

Ooookkk.... did this myself but i've screwed it up a bit... after dismantling the cluster i tested the original led's by suplying 12v to them ( on the tacho side ) . After that the tacho led's wouldn't light up as bright as they used to... i said to myself that maybe those aren't 12v led's and i've made them faulty by suplying that voltage but now i've changed the led's with 12v white ones and the tacho ones are still a little dimmer than the others... Could i have damaged the resistor/s for those 3 tacho leds? Would be gratefull if anybody could help and point me where and what to check , i'm sure fiat couldn't just use 12v led's and instead they went for a more complex solution ...
PS: i don't think i've damaged the new ones during soldering since i used a very fine tip soldering iron and the other led's are working just perfect...

 

[Dexterko]

Umm, they're not 12V LEDs, they are NORMAL LEDs that run on 2-3V...I don't believe there are 12V LED's, unless they are bundled together like those 50W LED lamps...The voltage on the instrument cluster tho is lowered so they can operate...and yes, you probably damaged some resistors or such, I'm not an expert, but something is damaged for sure...
A little update, I tried to change the LED's on my friend's Stilo and the LED's work fine, but I broke the servos while removing the needles...the servo shaft stuck to the needle on all four servos and got out with them...so now they're busted...not sure what to do now, should I try to find new servos or just buy him a used instrument cluster and be done with it...it's orange, deal with it... :bang:

 

[djacco]

changed and they took a picture of almost all the LEDs in may stiLo...

was now very different and far more beautiful.. ​

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usual place of indicators marking pen was opened, inserting the same mark to coincide loathed..​

litters molluscs should be removed by turning..

If the engine going down...​

solder and soldering iron with the help of LEDs would remove the original..​

then we want to make a soldering iron and solder again, LED color is in the making...​

led to the explosion of the computer screen is not transparent for the 2 layers of leaves, put the file..​

test time

gate arm control panel in the same way....​

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but no longer as clear picture could not take full....​

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I want to check my cluster for faults and like to change the LED's but I can not get the needles off... can you give us a hint as how you did this?
The back of my cluster has several dark spots looks like corrosion but I'm not sure. Who knows what this is and if it can cause cluster faults?