want my gauges to light up more white...

[vr4gasm]

i want my speedo and tach to be more white than yellow so if i just swap out the 194s that light it up with some white led 194s will that take care of it? or do i need to split it all apart and sand down behind the gauges?

[TheGr8Schlotzky]

Re: want my gauges to light up more white...

If you did white LEDs, it would certainly whiten everything up. How much though, I couldn't tell you. Do you not like the after market gauge overlays that are available?

[vr4gasm]

Re: want my gauges to light up more white...

i don't want to lose the oem look when they are not lit up

[masonvonritchie]

Re: want my gauges to light up more white...

LED's will definitely help you out. I replaced the 194's with blue LED's and even that is brighter than the regular bulbs. So a set of white LED's will surely brighten your gauge cluster up.

[bigbrian442]

Re: want my gauges to light up more white...

Remember LED's can't be dimmed, so if they are too bright you have to live with it.

[Rob Bell]

Re: want my gauges to light up more white...

How come they can't be dimmed?

[savagecamaro96]

Re: want my gauges to light up more white...

LED's will definitely help you out. I replaced the 194's with blue LED's and even that is brighter than the regular bulbs. So a set of white LED's will surely brighten your gauge cluster up.

how do you like the blue ones?
you got any pics?

[TheGr8Schlotzky]

Re: want my gauges to light up more white...

Remember LED's can't be dimmed, so if they are too bright you have to live with it.

They can be dimmed, but the contrast between full and the lowest setting will not be as drastic as the stock ones. i.e. when the rest of the bulbs are hardly visibly on, the LEDs will be much more noticeable, but still quite dimmed.

Rob: The lack of contrast is because of the fairly drastic difference in power required to light up an LED in comparison to an incandescent bulb. An incandescent bulb might take 5w to power to it's peak performance level, whereas a comparable LED might require somewhere in the neighborhood of .15w. Since the dimmers on our cars are made for dimming incandescents, they are not set up properly for dimming LEDs.

[masonvonritchie]

Re: want my gauges to light up more white...

Remember LED's can't be dimmed, so if they are too bright you have to live with it.

Good point. If it comes to that though, at least it's fairly easy to change out those bulbs.

how do you like the blue ones?
you got any pics?

I love the blue ones. I don't have any pics but I've been wanting to take some, so maybe I'll get out there and do it. The only thing about having the blue LED's is that the red parts of the gauge cluster aren't so visible when the lights are on, but that really doesn't bother me.

[ssms5411]

Re: want my gauges to light up more white...

My white face gauge over lay has the red parts light up with the stock dimmer switch and also dims the blue too. the white looks great during the day and outstanding at night. I can't remember how long it took me or when I did the install but I know it was a pain. My gas mile countdown never worked after I did the white face gauges. Damm it.LOL

[masonvonritchie]

Re: want my gauges to light up more white...

When I installed my LED's it was a huge pain. Some of them I could get to without taking out the entire gauge cluster but some of them I couldn't, and trying to get that thing out of the dash is tons of fun.

[iZZZ!]

Re: want my gauges to light up more white...

i got LEDS in my mr2.l looks great. i could dim them no problem. im planning to do the same to both camaros

http://superbrightleds.com/specs/bulb_specs.htm

you should aviod leds that all face the same direction because they will cause hot spots

[masonvonritchie]

Re: want my gauges to light up more white...

As far as whether they dim or not, I guess it just depends where you get them from. I got a set of blue LED's from superbrightleds.com for the HVAC that would dim, but I had to take them out because for some reason after I put them in, my turn signal bulbs kept burning out. But I got a set for the gauge cluster from ledvault.com and they don't dim.