I was wondering if anyone has changed their interior dash light color from the orange to anything different? I haven't found anything on it how much it would be to change and how long of a process it is. If you have any information on this it would be appreciated.
Thanks
Wooley

 

This is a mod on my list of to-do's. One has to remove the various lighted components from the dash and center stack, open them up and then with a variable voltage soldering iron, unsolder the old led's from each circuit board and replace them with these:

http://www.oznium.com/plcc-2

It is a bit tedious to do, but the results are absolutely stunning.

 

There's a thread on it on m|u. I'll look it up and get back to you.

 

Found it:

not-so-rednwhite's garage thread

 

I have the blue also and love it

 

Is there any way someone could write up a guide on how to change these out?

 

The topic is covered in these threads (and a few others):
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...backdrops.html
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...eedo-tach.html

The concept is simple -- take the components apart and replace the LEDs. You can do it yourself if you have good soldering skills and experience with surface mount technology. If you don't have experience working with surface mount electronics, you might want to find somebody to do it for you. There are consequences $$$$ if you mess up the circuit board.

 

The more I look at this the more I think this could be out of my hands. I am trying to find somone I guess who could do this in the Virgina/DC/Maryland Area if anyone knows any shops that do this.

 

how hard is this to do?

 

The main question is whether you have experience soldering surface mount electronics and confident about your skills. It is not difficult to remove and disassemble the speedo and tach to access the circuit boards. If you are good at soldering SMT, it would be straightforward to replace about 25 LEDs on the circuit boards. If you are not experienced soldering SMT, I wouldn't try to train yourself directly on these boards . Practice on something else until you are confident you won't mess it up.

 

Wouldnt changing the leds change the overall circuitry of the board itself? Since different color leds have different voltage drops. So wouldnt you have to add or remove some resistors to accomodate for this?

 

possibly

 

My fiance just got a 2007 mini and I intend on replacing all of the LEDs in the gauges and dash. I've replaced the LEDs in 3 motorcycles gauge clusters, my old Volkswagon GTI, and current Toyota Tundra. This mod is not difficult or tedious as long as you have soldering skills which isn't even a big deal as long as you practice before you do the real thing. Watch some youtube videos and practice on an old broken device with a circuit board. Seriously it's not a big deal. My experience is that it is harder and more tedious to disassemble everything to get to the circuit boards. Replacing the LEDs is actually easy and fast once you get into a rhythm. My Tundra had 50 something LEDs and the actual replacing process took about an hour. It took longer getting everything apart and back together. This mod is a more intimidating mod than it is difficult.

 

Oh, and as long as you replace the existing LEDs with the same type of LED it will not affect voltage. You are just changing one color for another. I'll do a write up and post it with pics when I do it in the next few weeks or so.

 

What's the led build size for the r56? Thanks