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Nights will be longer soon, I have a few bulbs in the dash not working, plus I have a more deluxe dash project coming up for Frankenstinky. I found the threads on LEDs for our dash, but it's a dated dance to old music. I'd like to get input from anybody who may have recently tripped the fantastic light.
My concerns:
Soft white light (less than 5000K)
Idiot lights can be bright (WIF, ALT, Brake, etc.), but I'd like the turn, 4X4, cruise, and other normal indicators to go easy on the pupils.
I hear tell the LEDs can sometimes light up a little just sitting there, due to a little bleed voltage. I hope not.
I know there are about (5) 194s and upwards of (15-19) 74s, depending on options in the vehicle. I also know there is one odd bulb in there, but I forgot the number already - I think it had something to do with PATS.
Dimmable without flicker or damage.
If I have to go incandescent for the less-bright indicators, I'm fine with that... they already lasted 20 years.
I occasionally drive Class A motorchoach with 5K LED's in the dash and it is just not right. Too pure white of a coloration, but perhaps that is me. Given a choice, I'd go with either 2,700 - 3K Kelvin or red for the gauges.
My go-to source is vleds. I have tried superbrights and other highly rated vendors (from the jungle site), but none have matched the quality or durability of vleds. The experience that I have is to go cheap and replace the LED when it fails in a year or three, or pay vleds and significantly reduce that risk.
Agree with the concern over how the LED's handle dimming. In the case of the motorcoach with 5K LED's, apparently dimming was not a requirement as they are either full-on and blinding, flickering, or off For ability to dim, I recently contacted vleds and was told that the LED's I wanted were good with that. So consider reaching out with a list and see if you get the same results.
Toward actual bulbs, (and at the risk of insulting) another thing is to color match with the lens. Get a red LED that will sit in back of a red lens, yellow LED for yellow lens, etc... Going with all white will result in a color shift as the lens will filter out some of the bandwith. For example putting a white LED in back of a red lens will result in pink, and yellow will result a canary color.
Another thing to watch is the use of blue in the console. I had a brake controller with blue LED and found it distracting.
Also, might want to start small and slowly build-out use of LED's in the cluster.
Reasoning is that I have one vehicle which hates LED's in the cluster and I had to move back to filament.
I swapped most of the instrument cluster bulbs out with LED bulbs when I first bought the truck.
What Cody said is accurate.
I ended up removing all of the LED bulbs except for the cruise control indicator green light. This was very dim even with a new standard bulb, but works very well with an LED bulb. Even during daylight hours the other LED bulbs were a bit bright, but were way too bright in hours of darkness.
I occasionally drive Class A motorchoach with 5K LED's in the dash and it is just not right. Too pure white of a coloration, but perhaps that is me. Given a choice, I'd go with either 2,700 - 3K Kelvin or red for the gauges.
My go-to source is vleds. I have tried superbrights and other highly rated vendors (from the jungle site), but none have matched the quality or durability of vleds. The experience that I have is to go cheap and replace the LED when it fails in a year or three, or pay vleds and significantly reduce that risk.
Agree with the concern over how the LED's handle dimming. In the case of the motorcoach with 5K LED's, apparently dimming was not a requirement as they are either full-on and blinding, flickering, or off For ability to dim, I recently contacted vleds and was told that the LED's I wanted were good with that. So consider reaching out with a list and see if you get the same results.
Toward actual bulbs, (and at the risk of insulting) another thing is to color match with the lens. Get a red LED that will sit in back of a red lens, yellow LED for yellow lens, etc... Going with all white will result in a color shift as the lens will filter out some of the bandwith. For example putting a white LED in back of a red lens will result in pink, and yellow will result a canary color.
Another thing to watch is the use of blue in the console. I had a brake controller with blue LED and found it distracting.
Also, might want to start small and slowly build-out use of LED's in the cluster.
Reasoning is that I have one vehicle which hates LED's in the cluster and I had to move back to filament.
2700-3000 is similar to an incandescent color temperature, 41K is getting pretty cool, great for shop lights but I would think annoying in your face while driving. For dimming, they are getting better at that, but you will have to know how they dim with the stock dimmer. For my EV-2 gauges I had to install a rheostat under the dash to get them to dim at the same rate as the incandescents but it's still not perfect. Maybe find out what the newer cars with LEDs are using? Like Tesla?
Tug, have you perused the LED how-to threads in the Excursion Tech folder?
Stewart
That was step 1 (that's how I knew the bulb numbers). There's just one problem with the tech folder and tech - tech changes too fast. If I want to do cups, the information there is timeless. If I want the latest on head units, backup cams, or LED lights - the questions need to be asked on a regular basis.
On another front, given how OCD I can be - I will have a whole list of new things to consider when buying LEDs for the dash. I'll have answers to these questions:
What color or color temperature should each light be? The park brake light won't likely have the same specs as the turn signal.
How bright should each light be? I've seen some of the lights reach 130 lumens - and 5 of those in the dash will light up the back seat. I see some are 1 Lumen, and that won't let you know your battery isn't being charged.
What beam angle should each be? The lumens get divided up among the different degrees of angle, so a dim bulb with a tight angle can look as bright as a higher-lumen bulb with a wide angle. The Water In Fuel light doesn't do the same job as the dash illumination light, so the beam angles will be different.
Diffused or direct lighting? Diffused glows (dash illumination), where direct is more laser like (low fuel).
Initially... I thought I was just going to get two styles of bulbs and install them. Based on real-world feedback, I see this is going to be more of a thing - and I might actually come up with a Tugly dash mod.
...Maybe find out what the newer cars with LEDs are using? Like Tesla?
Good information on the color temp, but the problem with Jurassic trucks is they sometimes don't avail themselves to the latest wizbangs. I have to work within the confines of the base style.
Here is a thought. For the gauge illumination, go with red. Reasoning is that (as noticed) LED construction / configuration is all over the place. For the gauge illumination, chances are good that it will require a rather small LED 'bulb' in order to fit within the housing. With that limitation, a radially fired red should work well as the physically small dimension will naturally limit the amount of light by way of limiting the amount of LEDs that will physically fit in the housing.
Oh, and trust me, the redlines will still show-up even with red LED's
Seeing as the photo in Post #1 did not match the sockets to bulb sizes, am presuming that the 5 unidentified sockets are 194's. Given that, I'd try something like this first: https://www.vleds.com/shop-bulb-numb.../194-14-r.html
And that thread would be placed into the 7.3L PSD Tech Folder.
When I had LED's in my dash, there were several issues that led me to removing most of them. The small warning light bulbs I left most of those as direct beam with the diode directly on top of the base pointing right at the cluster face. This works well for the warning lights because they are not on all the time like the high beam indicator, which I changed back.
The color range was between white and cool blue, but that made little difference because the tunnel to the light is fairly closed off not allowing bleed over and the cluster warning lights are red, green, orange, etc...
The main gauges (RPM/MPH) and even the small gauges I changed back because the bleed over was horrible. I bought the bulbs from Ebay as China specials and just utilized them in other applications. The light was coming out the side of the gauges and made the needle post like the sun. I had used 2700 LED's for those which us the ONLY LED my wife will allow in the house as well.
Here is a thought. For the gauge illumination, go with red. Reasoning is that (as noticed) LED construction / configuration is all over the place. For the gauge illumination, chances are good that it will require a rather small LED 'bulb' in order to fit within the housing. With that limitation, a radially fired red should work well as the physically small dimension will naturally limit the amount of light by way of limiting the amount of LEDs that will physically fit in the housing.
Oh, and trust me, the redlines will still show-up even with red LED's
Seeing as the photo in Post #1 did not match the sockets to bulb sizes, am presuming that the 5 unidentified sockets are 194's. Given that, I'd try something like this first: https://www.vleds.com/shop-bulb-numb.../194-14-r.html
That one little bulb is 40 lumens. That would be good for the alternator light, were it not for all the bleeding of light on the side.
The plain ol' incandescent 194 is 26 lumens and uses 3.8 watts.
The incandescent 74 is 9 lumens at 1.4 watts.
With the above info, I wouldn't want the annunciator lights to be any brighter than about 30 lumens - the high beam indicator, cruise, and turn signals no more than stock - but I'm OK with the dash illumination getting up to 30-40 lumens (diffused and wide angle) as long as it can be dimmed. The higher lumens would be used only in day driving.
For ability to dim, I recently contacted vleds and was told that the LED's I wanted were good with that. So consider reaching out with a list and see if you get the same results.
