I basically cut off the stock footwells, stripped the wires, and tied together/electrical taped the wires with the wires on the LED panel I put in. It was enough to power front footwells and I also ran footwell LEDs under the front seats. So it can power my 5 watt LEDs with no problem. Polarities, I can't remember but it is here on the forums, I remember reading it on a DIY. I just tried it once and if it didn't light up, switch it around. Doesn't do any harm or blow fuses to do that.

 

Yeah I remember seeing it too, I just can't, for the life of me, remember where I found it. I'll just give it a try. Thanks!

 

The hardest part is removing the needles (worried about breaking them) and soldiering the LEDs sideways on the circuit board... My recommendation, wrap a single strand of copper wire around your soldiering iron tip and use the wire as a means to melt the soldier on the board. I used 1206 SMD's but PLCC2's would work too.

 

We rebuild all IS clusters and do custom LED lighting.

 

Looks like your needle is in need of alignment. I spent 2 hours on just aligning my needles after the swap. OCD about those kinds of things. I love my blue needles now! They're much easier to see in my peripherals while concentrating on the road.

 

Yes. Picture is for illustration purposes only

 

If you open the gauge cluster, which is a very simple process; you can make adjustments to the starting and ending points of the needles. However, because the error rate you are attempting to correct is non-linear (the margin of error grows with the rotational speed), adjusting the needles probably won't accomplish what your trying to compensate for.