Plastic AC front panel plate

[Bitsyncmaster]

I would like to buy a spare one that I can machine to get better LED lighting. I think direct LED lighting would work much better but don't want to damage my original in case it does not work out.

[uhhair]

Just pulled one from our parts car. Make me an offer!


I would like to buy a spare one that I can machine to get better LED lighting. I think direct LED lighting would work much better but don't want to damage my original in case it does not work out.

[Bitsyncmaster]

Just pulled one from our parts car. Make me an offer!

I decided to try building one from a sheet of Lexan. So if someone else is needing one, go for it.

[Bitsyncmaster]

It's been a lazy day but did hold an LED up to the back of the faceplate. I think I will be able to move the LEDs back enough to cover the letters with one LED each. I'm going to try some "frosting" of the lexan back side to see if that will also help. Maybe just test with some wax paper.

[Bitsyncmaster]

Did you know the line on each knob was designed to be lighted? I guess they never got it to work They used a heavy white paint in the line which is clear plastic under the line. I was wondering why they had a clear area under those three knobs.

Guess I could put an LED under each position on the two right knobs but the temp knob is variable.

I will have to think about this some more.

[Bitsyncmaster]

Don't think I will try to light the knob line with LEDs under the knob. I think you would get light showing under the edges of the knobs. I would like to mount an LED in the knob but then I need to get power to it. Could use wires, slip rings and maybe transformer couple but just keeping that idea on the back burner.

Don't think frosting the "glass" helps much. I sanded a spare piece of lexan with 320 grit and tested it.

One thing for you guys that like blue LEDs, you can use blue behind the green filtered locations and it seems to pass the blue without any problems. Now blue passing through the red or orange just about filters all the light.

I don't like the mounting of the fan switch because it takes up room to prevent me mounting the LEDs further back. Just a distance of 0.10" makes a big difference in the area that gets illuminated. Maybe I can find a wider angle LED.

[kajcienski]

Before I went to my custom set-up, I did notice that the stock knobs lit up - but had to be very dark out to really get a good effect. What I did was I popped those clear pieces out out of the knobs, stripped the white paint, and repainted with a much more translucent white paint. It not only freshened up the look, but could see the light on the knob much better. Although there is no direct light behind the knob, the panel is designed with enough light bleed in that area to do the job. Also note that the replacement DMCH knobs they sell now only come with a SOLID black plastic insert where the painted clear piece is on the original knobs. So, save your originals and pop out the inserts to replace on the DMCH knobs if you still want them to light. I think it looks really cool. When I made my own LED panel, I made sure to keep the light bleed there so my knobs still light up.



Did you know the line on each knob was designed to be lighted? I guess they never got it to work They used a heavy white paint in the line which is clear plastic under the line. I was wondering why they had a clear area under those three knobs.

Guess I could put an LED under each position on the two right knobs but the temp knob is variable.

I will have to think about this some more.

[Bitsyncmaster]

I'm still thinking of how to power an LED mounted in the knob.

I ordered some new LEDs today. Same small size (0805 package) but have the best consistant intensity at angles up to 170 degrees. It should help with this backlighting project. My other LEDs (ones I use in the window switchs) are 140 degree.

[1batt4u]

I discovered that when I started working on the Custom Double-Din Face Plate. I seen them lit up from other people posting their pictures. I think only with the LED bulbs that they use.

[dmc6960]

I've had light-up knobs since '01. Saw that it was just white paint on clear plastic so I polished the paint off. Illumination quality leaves a lot to be desired but I can easily tell where it is at night. Still running the standard incandescents here.

[Bitsyncmaster]

Got my new LEDs. Does not seem to affect the distance required to fill a filter. They do provide the same light at large angles and the lens on the LED is diffused so you don't get a pin point of bright light.

I used 1/4" thick lexan but I don't think the thickness of the lexan will affect the light fill since the filter (decal) is glued to the front.

What I need is longer shafts on the the switches. I think the light switches would be fine set a little deeper.

[Bitsyncmaster]

Did some playing with these new LEDs. Mounted 6 green LEDs for the FAN switch on a prototype board. Looks like those 6 LEDs will work out very nice and run at less than 5 ma. (these LEDs are very bright). I'm just running stings of 3 LEDs and a resistor to set the current.

These new LEDs do provide a lot of light out the 5 sides (has a square epoxy lens). So it illuminates the clear ring for the knob "arrow". I'm thinking of laying down LEDs for that knob arrow just to test the result. Thinking of using amber color for the arrow so would have to block the light from the green LEDs.

Anyway, you guys playing with LEDs (new dash), these are HSMM-C170 parts by Avago Tech. I was thinking of maybe using a larger "C150" to get a larger lens but you still can see the LED dot looking down on the lens.

The center knob will take a lot more LEDs since words to illuminate are quite long. Also the red/blue ring on the left knob will take some experimenting to blend the colors.

[DMC5180]

Dave, have you ever had the chance to see how todays cars Instrument clusters are Backlit. The new instrument clusters appear to be LED backlit with strong vibrant color. Multi coloring without any bleed over to other zones. Is it done with LEDs and filtering or Fiber optic light piping?

[Bitsyncmaster]

Dave, have you ever had the chance to see how todays cars Instrument clusters are Backlit. The new instrument clusters appear to be LED backlit with strong vibrant color. Multi coloring without any bleed over to other zones. Is it done with LEDs and filtering or Fiber optic light piping?

Good question. I have yet to disassemble any of the later cars with LEDs. I still think most still use incandescent bulbs. Even our original set up looks pretty good with a bright incandescent bulb and the light pipes. LEDs do provide much better colors when matched to the filter.

[Shep]

Dave, have you ever had the chance to see how todays cars Instrument clusters are Backlit. The new instrument clusters appear to be LED backlit with strong vibrant color. Multi coloring without any bleed over to other zones. Is it done with LEDs and filtering or Fiber optic light piping?LED's and filtering. I've taken the radio panel off of my '01 Civic, and part of the process involves disassembling some lighted switches for the HVAC controls. Right underneath the applicable decals is colored, diffuse plastic:
16050

And underneath those decals is clear plastic very cleverly designed to evenly distribute the light:
1604916048

In between both switches (near the back) is an LED, recessed and designed to shine into the plastic. Three switches, three knobs, but only two LED"s powering the whole thing, and yet the brightness is identical across all three. I'd imagine it's a similar setup for the instrument cluster.

[DMC5180]

LED's and filtering. I've taken the radio panel off of my '01 Civic, and part of the process involves disassembling some lighted switches for the HVAC controls. Right underneath the applicable decals is colored, diffuse plastic:
16050

And underneath those decals is clear plastic very cleverly designed to evenly distribute the light:
1604916048

In between both switches (near the back) is an LED, recessed and designed to shine into the plastic. Three switches, three knobs, but only two LED"s powering the whole thing, and yet the brightness is identical across all three. I'd imagine it's a similar setup for the instrument cluster.

The clear plastic is light piping engineered with prisms to bend and spread the light. What color are the 2 LED's?

[Shep]

The clear plastic is light piping engineered with prisms to bend and spread the light. What color are the 2 LED's?I honestly have no idea, but the end result illuminates mostly red/orange, with a little blue on the temperature dial. I'd imagine it's some shade of white, or possibly two dual-color LED's mixing blue and red. One LED lights the top and middle knobs, and the second lights the middle and bottom knobs, so it would have to be able to light both the red and the blue at the same time. There's no other colors on the dial.

[dmc6960]

I can attest that the light-piping method is slowly going away. I've done a lot of this research for my new cluster project. Junkyards serve many purposes. While its not completely adopted everywhere, the new trend is direct back-lighting with positioned LEDs, precisely the way Dave is describing doing his AC panel. Light pipes (and associated engineering) are slowly going away. This is also the same concept I'm using to backlight the new instrument cluster.