Aznteazer

They may be flickering for a while, but sooner or later, they'll die out completely.
I know because it happened to mine.
And yes, I tried to dim it down to make it come on again, but that doesn't seem to work anymore

Beef

I dont have a SC yet (almost got a 97 silver 5spd today )... any way I know electronics... The poblems you guys are worried about is the flickering, or totally burned out bulbs... For one the flickereing and "dead spots" in certains areas that the needles pass through make me belive that it could be that the contact from needle LED going to the power source in the cluster itself is either dirty of corroded.......... If someone has an extra cluster and is willing to take it apart we could find out if my hypothesis is correct...........

kccapt

Sounds like paint will work on my gas gauge needle.

How do I get to it?

KC Captain

markmaz

Once and for all, lets put all this talk about painting the needles
to bed because you guys are forgetting that these needles are
calibrated to specifications based on among other things, the
weight of the needles themselves.

Sooo, you can't paint the needles because it will then not show
the correct speed, temperature, etc. The only way we can fix
these things correctly is to determine EXACTLY what is the part
(bulb, transistor, whatever) that is causing the needles to flicker
or go entirely dark, and then find a source to replace just the
defective or worn out part.

Now, some of you guys take your engines out and replace them!
Other guys strip damn near everything else to suit your need for
speed or whatever taste you have.

Me, the SC is perfect just the way it came from the factory, but
shoot, can't one of you guys who like to take things apart and then but it back together again put down your wrenches for one weekend and figure out what the hell is causing all of us this problem. I for one, would be the first to give you a big ATA- BOY

Now, just do it!!! Please.

Jmai22

i'm busting out the volatage meter and testing every little trasintor or cap on the freakin board of the cluster. when i find this cap or transisitor i will sell the information for 100 bucks a person. LOL hahaha . LOL . ahahah. lOL . hahahahhahahahahahaa

Skulinex

I just wanna make something clear since I keep on seeing a lot of ppl believing that there is a bulb behind the needles, THERE IS NONE!
thats why it's been so dificult to fix this problem, each neddle has an array of LEDs on them, that red light you see its the actual Line of LEDs, im taking a guess here but I believe is around 6 LED's on the big needles and 3 or so on the small ones.. this is why some of you still have 'half' of the needle still light up, cuz you have probably burned 1 or a couple of them only. I've been trying to figure this problem since a long time ago and it seems that its the LED's itself that burn, if the whole needle went bye bye at once, then it MIGHT be a transistor or the whole array.. to give you an idea of the type of led's I'm talking about , check this link and look towards the bottom of the page, the 1.8X3.8mm type

http://www.netdisty.net/ds/L200CU/

it's not exactly the size but that is just to give you an idea of the shape... the needle houses the pow for the LED's, thats why the middle part of it is so huge, look at it when the car is off, and notice how its relatively big and non circular like other cars... replacing those LED's by itself is not impossible, but very very difficult, thats why once i was considering just getting a new cluster .. this is also the why soo many of those companies will not be able to make it blue indiglo or super white needles whatever without some major work, they would need to make new needles!!, find a way to put bulbs behind each needle, wire them bla bla bla, just imagine the cost..

Aznteazer

I never came upon LEDs that are small enuf to fit into our needles.

Does the weight of the needle really matter?

So much analysis into such a small cluster

Jmai22

actually i have played with these needles before and it is not impossible. i admit its hard but not impossible. i use to have a Nokia 8290 phone with the ugly green light. well i changed ALL 12 of the leds to bright bright blue. it was TINY. and when i say small i mean if you drop one you will nver find it again.

I also don't think it is the LED's burning out them self its some sort of cap that is dying. if the LED were to burn out they would not flicker and they would not work sometimes then burn out other times. Its some cap thats getting weak and totally dying out is my theory.

Taka

How does LS dash look like? like SC's? maybe similar circuit? This burnt out needle also happens to those LS needle. if they are similar circuit, can we trace those cap or transistor? or maybe they are burnt out because of just LED's aging, 8-11 years..that's what I figured

Jmai22

LS has white needles. and i believe they also use LED's but never heard of them burning out.

Aznteazer

Can you show us how to take apart the needle and replace the LEDs with the Nokia LEDs?
I think I have spare LEDs for the phone that I was going to put on my phone.

Even if the capacitor is leaking current, it would be kinda hard to find it in our messy cluster.

Jmai22

The Led's on the phone were aligned on a flat board. The led's for the needle are literally on a needle and will be very hard to align nicely and do it right. like i said before i don't believe its the LED that are burnt out.

Aznteazer

Oh, my misunderstanding.
I thot you changed your needle lights with the Nokia LEDs
Kinda got happy for a second
See wat alcohol does to you??

jimmit

I've worked with LEDs for a while and I know that burning out an LED takes a quiet a bit of work since they have such a huge life span. Overpowering them or a loose or bad connection with the power source would cause them to do some of the things that happen but to me it really does sound weird for an LED to burn out in only 7 years. I'm not saying its impossible for it to happen but there are a lot of SC's with blinking or dead needles so it would probably have to do something with the power going to the LED or just bad design in the LED connections. dont worry one day someone out there with the expertise will figure out how to fix this simple problem with a simple answer besides paying over 500. Well actually its not a really simple problem. Anyways thats just what I think.

stock300

So far, the only problems I've had with cluster needles on my '93 SC has been the speedometer needle but that's enough to get me a ticket if I'm not careful. I've reduced the intensity to about half. Anyway, here's an observation that I'm wondering if others have noted since it may help in the long run to troubleshoot this problem:
My needle is not completely out but flickers with various segments going on and off. There appears to be a temperature dependency. On hot days here in Dallas (and we have a few), the flickering starts almost as soon as I start the car. On cooler days, the needle will stay completely lit until I've traveled a while. Maybe I should move to Minnosota . Has anybody else noted the same thing?