933005spd

Ok, so I have been really spending alot - perhaps too much, time on these issues of late. I went ahead and spent the $$ for a replacement gauge clusters and ac displaysto chop up and for comparisons.

Here is what I found - in very brief summary for now - I will post exact details including the pinouts once my notes are clearer.

Backlighting:
- LED's are a great, easy and fairly inexpensive upgrade. Pretty.

Needle:
- Just like OLT, the lexus lighting guru, has stated the SMD LED's generate quite a bit of heat. Way too much for the poor plastic support.

Easy to pull out the piping and smd's and fab an led. No problems with balancing and look.

It is fairly easy to repair the needle to the OEM look - If you have the tools to handle surface mount devices, AND steady hands. But just like OLT says, the problem then is in the piping. Unfortunately, once we replaced that support there still is another problem.... The needle itself. The needle will warp from the heat of the SMD's blazing away - especially at idle.

What do we do at idle?
- Kill the SMD's like OLT recommended.
- Channel some air into the housing? Will that mess with the gauges? Probably.
- Give up on the smd's? yeah, unless you have a better idea.

Oh wait, I do. I know polymer chemistry. What an easy part this is to make. We upgrade the heat resistant ability of the polymer. Geez, the industry has really come a long way in regards to additives for heat stability since the early 90's.

I am not about to go into the needle making business though. Just throwing it out there for some creative business person (I have too many irons in the fire). If someone needs a few pointers I am happy to give you some formula tips - all you need to do really is talk to a plastics fabricator.

Climate Control:

Ahhh, the black, smudgy look LCD.... Ok so this was easy also. The pinouts are easy to figure out as to what pin controls what part of the display. Talked to a few manufacturers and they all quoted a similar price. They change the display icons slightly and you are good to go.

Again - I dont want to be in the LCD selling business. I'd rather buy a few from you, instead of spending around $6 K of my cash and then having to sell a hundred of these damn things.

Let me know if you have questions or just wait for the detailed report later.

This is not an ad, and I am not selling stuff, but I am sure one of you may take these ideas and run with them - consider this post 'open source'.

Peter

933005spd

Ok, we were also able to get the car to drive an LED from the LCD display pinouts.

This may mean an inexpensive, though not very classy, way of displaying some data using the LED's to backlight some sort of custom made front face plate for the 'icons'.

I got my ELK M1 Gold in yesterday, so when I get back from looking at this coupe this weekend I'll be working on installing that and tying into the HA system, so this needs to go on the backburner.

Next step though is to get an inexpensive two digit LCD display which you can tie in so the temp setting displays. I have ordered a few different ones which should fit right in that area, We will see though.

It has to look good though, that is why I still think the custom LCD approach is the best idea.

Just wanted to say that there is an inexpensive, functional display option.

And... I heard from a guy who has come up with a replacement for the front of the Climate control with a carputer. Interesting what some of you folks come up with, really cool.

Peter