Back when I was fiddling around with the mirage's gauges, I was experimenting with LEDs too. What I found best for spreading the light was to do the same as stock: aim them into a piece of transparent plastic from the edges. And if you put red, blue and yellow and vary the current (using a rheostat) to each one, you can get lots of colors for backlighting. That's how the 05-09 Mustang's MyColor system works. Add a white LED in for white lighting too.

For example:
If your LEDs take 20ma each and the red one(s) are all the way on, while the blue ones are at 50% and Yellow and White are off, you'll get a reddish-violet color. For more info, you might head over to the MP3car forums as gauge mods if part of their forte

 

I like them. Very clean.

 

Actually, now you can just use RGB leds. They are also white when you power up the 3 colors

 

It also depends on the viewing angle of the LEDs. You can buy some with 30* then others with 120*. Obviously the 30 will only get a certain point lit up.

Shaving the tips does work in a way if you grind them down, then use wet sand paper to smooth them out to displace the light better. I've been doing that on my LED projects for years. I've made multiple color headlight accents, some with multiple colors and patterns, others with adjustable colors and brightness. Same goes for some cupholders I have done for people. LEDs are a lot of fun.

 

Indeed

leds are great

I did this in my house

[youtube]8extwQct1j0[/youtube]

 

Have you considered Electro-Luminescent sheet lighting? These are paper thin and can be cut to the same dimensions as the gauges themselves.

 

If i had no boundries i would have a red face with white numbers and a needle that would light up white or blue.........

 

EL paper seems to only be avail in bluish or white. and its expensive ... very expensive

 

Not true. eBay for example has lots of selection. Do some research online, there are many retailers selling the 1 foot squares for ~$15 and an inverter for 5-30$. It also comes in many colours, yellow being one of them.

 

Turns out you were right!

I was not able to find them that cheap on ebay, but yes, you can find them on ebay

I only tried to source them locally, and boy... the price was high

Thanks for the tip Sgt!

 

I think it looks great as far as the tach itself goes; however, the combination of the old school gauges with the new school tach doesn't look entirely right to me. I still think you did an amazing job (as I think everything you've done as far as decals and what have you goes is), but I think I'd have went with a more old school look with the same color scheme. Execution is fantastic though, and as always I am really impressed.

 

Yeah, I was looking at using that stuff for a work project a couple years ago and did find some vendors online that were very cheap. Looks like the current eBay selection is pretty small but googling around will turn up something.

 

I like this and after seeing what you were going for think it turned out great any chance you would sell them or make a diy template for down load ?

 

I would purchase a set, if we have a DIY template to give u what i wanted!!!

 

Yes, the illumination is green thanks to those filters. To remove them, use a soldering iron. Melting the white plastic make the removal a 2 seconds deal.



OEM clock. Man... what were they thinking?????


Can you fit another thing there? yes you can. I will either adapt an oil press gauge, or my wideband gauge.






All filters removed




Acrylics in place for tach and speedo.



More pics soon!
Working to power the cluster in my kitchen, so I can take pics of it illuminated

 

I vote for wideband.

 

OEM illumination with the filters in place




OEM illumination without the filters




A few RGB leds turned YELLOW, randomly placed behind the gauge face. I still need to figure out how to place AND aim them to get rid of the shadow of the gauge mecanics

 

experiment with using a sheet of plexi as a light pipe... may help to score it to diffuse the light evenly.

 

Any update on this one xlr8planet? I'm going to be doing this myself over the winter, and am interested in the process you used, whether you printed on multiple layers of clear plastic or just one layer with plexiglass covering the faces.

I'm probably going to go with black faces and white numbers, backlit in blue.

 

Agreed, a template or file would be nice. I ain't changing much just the font and a few add ons.

 

here's a cool write-up on custom gauges...

http://www.revlimiter.net/mods/gauges.php

 

Hey XLR, why didn't you use the original transparent plastic sheets that came with the gauges? I was taking apart my '84 gauge cluster and the original transparent plastic was still clean and nice looking, I am sure if you aimed some LED's into the entry points it would work just like stock.

 

to that last question; I had done the same on a different vehicle I did the gauges on and you still end up with bright spots at the entry areas. if you get the wide angle LED's it is less so but still obvious. All I am looking for is a file on the SA gauges so I can modify them

 

do a search for custom gauges, i know i saw a file floating around somewhere for the SA gauges the other week, wish i could be more help. If i come across it i'll post it up.

 

i was doing some poking around and found a website that had offered custom gauges in the past for FB and SA applications. I emailed the owner to see if he'd be interested in making some more. Please check out this link:

http://www.customgaugefaces.com/index.htm

and this old thread:

https://www.rx7club.com/showthread.p...=gauge+needles