Picked up some blue LEDs yesterday from the post office...purchased from eBay, came all the way from Hong Kong. Excellent prices and came with 510 ohm resistors to hook them up to 12V....


Planning to pretty much replace all the bulbs in the Intrigue to blue LEDs....door lock switches, steering wheel controls, climate controls, (radio already has blue LEDs...Pioneer DEH-P880PRS), window switches, everything...except the dome lights....I like to be able to see stuff when the dome lights are on...


I had purchased some intrigue door switch panels and window switch panels a while back from eBay, they were supposed to be for my mom's intrigue, but they were tan, not grey. These are currently my "test" subjects.

Printed off the wiring diagrams...connector views, etc...

Here's a door lock switch "prototype"...

FLASH ON:



FLASH OFF:



TOC Admin
Brando

looks cool, be careful with those tools on the kitchen table !!

What is a kitchen table?

Worked on it tonight....lots to go still...
Got the front doors done, driver and passenger side window switches and door lock switches. The driver side door switch only used on bulb for the entire assembly...so it's a bit dim...looks better in person than it does in the picture. Also did the traction control switch.

Still need to do....fuel release, trunk release, dimmer, cruise, hazard switches, which will require soldering I believe (unlike the door switches)...like the traction control switch. Also need to do the ignition switch, instrument panel, shifter console, climate control unit, steering wheel controls....and I think that's about it. Gonna have to order some 194 and 74 LED bulbs for some of it.






Looks better in person...


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Brando

What the hell am I still doing up....

Decided to do the fuel door release switch, trunk switch, fog light switch, and the dimmer switch...





The dimmer switch was a little harder...it actually had one of those bulb holders that plug into the unit (as did the fog light switch). The hard part was not being able to solder a resistor into the "gray" dimmer wire outside of the switch....since the wire is actually built into the circuit board (it is the dimmer switch after all). Had to break the trace and solder a resistor over the break.

TOC Admin
Brando

More....

Need to get a red LED for the hazard switch.






Took the instrument cluster out while I was in there...need to get 5 - 194 blue LED bulbs, 3 - green 74 LED bulbs (cruise indicator, turn signals) and 1 - blue 74 LED bulb for the brights. I assume the other indicators are already illuminated by LEDs (seat belt, brake, SES, etc..) on the circuit board...didn't take it apart, but there wasn't any bulb sockets for them.
Also need to get a 194 blue LED bulb for the shifter.

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Brando

Another "prototype"...



Can't seem to capture the true blue with my camera...

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Brando

Here's the real deal....had to take my air bag out to get to it...









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Brando

Here they are...all installed...



Air bag module is installed...



Testing them out...



Sweeeeeeet...




Everything put back together for now...



Night shot...



LED bulbs for shifter, instrument cluster, and ignition switch are on there way from www.superbrightleds.com



Not sure how I'm going to do the climate control unit yet...I'd like to get the display to match the white display of the pioneer head unit....
Need to get an orange LED for the rear defrost button, and might use white leds behind the knobs....not sure, have to see what blue looks like. I'll be working on the HVAC control module tomorrow.

It'd be a lot simpler if I had the manual HVAC controls....but what fun is that

Everything is much brighter with the LEDs...compared to the incandescent bulbs, most of which had blue "condoms" over the top of them taking away from the brightness (several of the bulbs had been previously replaced by me). The only exception being the master window control switch....need to fix that up somehow to make it brighter.

TOC Admin
Brando

Alright, got to working on the HVAC control...

Here is a pic I took showing the stock incandescent bulbs...


I took the time to test each bulb location to find out which lead was positive and which was negative. LEDs are light emitting diodes, they have a polarity and won't work if installed improperly...if you didn't know.
Here are the results of that testing...


I left the bulb in place for the rear defrost button, going to put an orange LED in place of it.
Here are the LEDs installed....


I put blue LEDs behind the knobs...but it turns out that the red portion doesn't even show up, so I might end up putting white LEDs behind the knobs....or try putting a red LED on that side and hope that PASS and DRIVER don't turn purple.

Swweeeeet...


The display is a vacuum fluorescent display, so the only real option to change the color, that I know of, is to maybe put some cellophane over the top of it....which I might just do.
Like this

TOC Admin
Brando

Got my SuperBrightLEDs.com order today....did the hazard switch so far.





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Brando

Put blue LEDs in the ignition switch, shifter, and instrument cluster...



Thinking of putting white LEDs behind the cluster instead, since like the HVAC module, the red doesn't show up. I'll then use blue glow gauge needles.
Also thinking of putting a white LED behind the shifter....can't really see the red indicator...although there is the LED shift indicator display on the instrument cluster...so it doesn't matter all that much.







Forgot to take a pic of the shifter....

TOC Admin
Brando

Brando, that looks friggin awesome. I want to something like this in the Nissan, but don't have the time to tediously go through everything

That looks tight man- How much time you have invested so far?

Neat.

Thanks, I've been planning this project for a few years...in my mind...
I was originally looking for blue LEDs with integrated resistors so that I could just solder in the LED...but they only make them in green, red, and yellow...and are extremely expensive. Since then my soldering skills have improved from working on broken amplifiers, so it was an easy task to solder in the resistor with the LED. It was interesting taking apart each switch and seeing how they were put together...at least for me.



Probably a few days if you add it all up....the climate control took the longest to do.



When you wanna do the stang?

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Brando