And the reason I start it is that I have no clue what I am doing with this stuff. I am completely non-electrically inclined.

However, I am feeling the need to change all my orange interior stuff to blue. Doesn't have to be bright-@ss, disco-crazy blue, but I'm researching a new head unit and nothing I want is matching and it's really bugging me.

How hard is this stuff to learn? Does anyone sell what I need to change the orange/amber lights to blue? And most importantly, will I be able to do it without electrocuting myself?

Any suggestions/tips/LED primer would be appreciated.

 

The concept is fairly simple: replace all the orange LEDs with blue LEDs. However in execution it is difficult. Unlike light bulbs, the LEDs are soldered into place and not designed to be replaceable. You'll need good electronics technician skills to do the soldering work. In particular, many of the LEDs are mounted on circuit boards with SMT (surface mount technology). This is efficient for machine manufacturing but to do by hand requires very skillful soldering (and preferably using specialized soldering tools).

Foxtrot_Xray is doing successful conversions of the speedo and tach to blue, and the results look amazing: https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ad.php?t=94118. See post #43 for a taste of what is involved.

 

Replacing the cabin LEDs isn't the place to learn LED soldering, I'm afraid. Too much heat will melt the LED, which as rkw said is soldered onto a circuit board. Working with the small surface-mount LEDs will require you to buy a special kind of precision soldering iron as well.

 

Hmm. Might be easier to change the blue in the head unit to orange

 

I assume you mean change the headunit, or that it has selectable color.

Leave it to Ian Cull (GBMINI) to actually change the LEDs inside an aftermarket headunit:
http://www.gbmini.net/wp/2007/01/cha..._an_alpine_hu/
http://www.gbmini.net/wp/2007/01/cha..._an_alpine_hu/