Blue Tuscan Dash
Discussion
I've been working on this for a while and have just got it completely finished so i thought i'd post a few pics.
All the LED's for the heater settings have been changed for clear ones that light up blue for the fan setting and go from blue to purple to red for the temperature.
I then set about changing all the LED's in the dash and there are over 100 of them, because different colour LED's require different voltages to operate them i have had to add a couple of control boxes full of variable resistors so that they are all adjustable to get the right light settings.
I then had to do the wing mirror adjuster LED's which was a bit harder than it looks due the the way they were wired in.
One problem with the original way the LED's worked is that there was only one brightness setting so they could be difficult to see on a bright day but a bit bright on a dark unlit road. When i added the control boxes i also made it so that when the headlights are switched on all the LED's go to a dimmer setting, this brightness is also fully adjustable.
The last job was to change the LCD display from green to blue, my original LCD display had lots of lines missing anyway so i was happy to experiment on this and Ian at Tourque RVT very kindly gave me an old on with missing lines to try and perfect my conversion before i bought a new one to convert and fit.
The conversion only cost me about £80 in LED's, wire, variable resistors etc but it is not something i would do again, it has taken alot of hours and there is over 100 meters of wire hidden behind the dash and under the centre console, this sounds alot but when the control box is half a meter away and you have to go back and to for each LED for 2 brightness settings it soon adds up, the wire is very fine though as each LED only requires a very small amount of current.
I have made some changes since these photos were taken, like the LED's at the top of the dash which shine onto the face of the dash only come on at night and the brightness has been adjusted.
I don't think the photo's really do it justice, it doesn't seem to come out properly and the shot at night looks really bright but if you compare the blue LED's to the red battery warning and oil warning lights that have not been altered you can see that the blue LED's are dimmer than the original ones.
Anyway see what you think. Rich
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All the LED's for the heater settings have been changed for clear ones that light up blue for the fan setting and go from blue to purple to red for the temperature.
I then set about changing all the LED's in the dash and there are over 100 of them, because different colour LED's require different voltages to operate them i have had to add a couple of control boxes full of variable resistors so that they are all adjustable to get the right light settings.
I then had to do the wing mirror adjuster LED's which was a bit harder than it looks due the the way they were wired in.
One problem with the original way the LED's worked is that there was only one brightness setting so they could be difficult to see on a bright day but a bit bright on a dark unlit road. When i added the control boxes i also made it so that when the headlights are switched on all the LED's go to a dimmer setting, this brightness is also fully adjustable.
The last job was to change the LCD display from green to blue, my original LCD display had lots of lines missing anyway so i was happy to experiment on this and Ian at Tourque RVT very kindly gave me an old on with missing lines to try and perfect my conversion before i bought a new one to convert and fit.
The conversion only cost me about £80 in LED's, wire, variable resistors etc but it is not something i would do again, it has taken alot of hours and there is over 100 meters of wire hidden behind the dash and under the centre console, this sounds alot but when the control box is half a meter away and you have to go back and to for each LED for 2 brightness settings it soon adds up, the wire is very fine though as each LED only requires a very small amount of current.
I have made some changes since these photos were taken, like the LED's at the top of the dash which shine onto the face of the dash only come on at night and the brightness has been adjusted.
I don't think the photo's really do it justice, it doesn't seem to come out properly and the shot at night looks really bright but if you compare the blue LED's to the red battery warning and oil warning lights that have not been altered you can see that the blue LED's are dimmer than the original ones.
Anyway see what you think. Rich
[url][url][url][url][url][url][url]Edited by Rich912 on Sunday 9th January 14:39
Edited by Rich912 on Sunday 9th January 14:41
Great Job and shows real talent and determination, simply fantastic. Mine is red and never considered it.
Been talking to Farnell the LCD is now discontinued from the supplier. The replacement is the same with the operating voltage change from 30v to 11.8v (I'll check the details), I was thinking that a resistor in line to get the right voltage and then the job is done. Which panel did you use? The more you use it the better it seems to get, but it needs changing.
Thanks
Neill
Been talking to Farnell the LCD is now discontinued from the supplier. The replacement is the same with the operating voltage change from 30v to 11.8v (I'll check the details), I was thinking that a resistor in line to get the right voltage and then the job is done. Which panel did you use? The more you use it the better it seems to get, but it needs changing.
Thanks
Neill
The LED for the window switch is a 5mm DIP LED, i got most of mine from here http://www.phenoptix.com/shop/5mm-leds-c-21_29_23.... they seem pretty good on price, i presume its green your after, if it was blue i have some you could off had.
They are also on e-bay but usually in larger quantities or you can buy them individually from Maplins but at about £1.50 each. The only problem maybe that they do seem very bright and you might have to put a resistor in line to dim it down, if you do need any other advice when changing it just give me a shout.
For the LCD display i bought a new one from Racing Green, they have re-designed it to make it less suseptible to losing lines, but i think your right that the key is to use it. I then dismantled it and replace the green bcklight LED's with blue ones, these are 1mm by 0.8mm and there's about 50 of them, so its a little bit fiddly. This also changed the operating voltage as they take less volts and i also just fitted an in line resistor to bring it to the right level, its also connected to the headlights so it dims when they are switched on.
They are also on e-bay but usually in larger quantities or you can buy them individually from Maplins but at about £1.50 each. The only problem maybe that they do seem very bright and you might have to put a resistor in line to dim it down, if you do need any other advice when changing it just give me a shout.
For the LCD display i bought a new one from Racing Green, they have re-designed it to make it less suseptible to losing lines, but i think your right that the key is to use it. I then dismantled it and replace the green bcklight LED's with blue ones, these are 1mm by 0.8mm and there's about 50 of them, so its a little bit fiddly. This also changed the operating voltage as they take less volts and i also just fitted an in line resistor to bring it to the right level, its also connected to the headlights so it dims when they are switched on.
Rich912 said:
The LED for the window switch is a 5mm DIP LED, i got most of mine from here http://www.phenoptix.com/shop/5mm-leds-c-21_29_23.... they seem pretty good on price, i presume its green your after, if it was blue i have some you could off had.
They are also on e-bay but usually in larger quantities or you can buy them individually from Maplins but at about £1.50 each. The only problem maybe that they do seem very bright and you might have to put a resistor in line to dim it down, if you do need any other advice when changing it just give me a shout.
Thanks, I will get a couple ordered.They are also on e-bay but usually in larger quantities or you can buy them individually from Maplins but at about £1.50 each. The only problem maybe that they do seem very bright and you might have to put a resistor in line to dim it down, if you do need any other advice when changing it just give me a shout.
Rich, what a fantastic job you have done there. It's got me thinking about doing mine to match the car as well, but it will have to wait until I have finished my other projects.
I notice your temperature light doesn't appear to be on in all your the pictures. Any reason for this, because I have noticed that mine works intermittently, and by the time I have decided to strip my dash down, it’s started working again.
Is this a fault or should this do this under certain circumstances?
I notice your temperature light doesn't appear to be on in all your the pictures. Any reason for this, because I have noticed that mine works intermittently, and by the time I have decided to strip my dash down, it’s started working again.
Is this a fault or should this do this under certain circumstances?
Thanks for all the positive comments, i think it must be one of a kind at the moment.
The water temp light did cause me a few problems, i think i had a dry soldered joint between the LED and printed circuit board, every time i tested it, it worked and when i put it back together if didn't, typical. Sorted it in the end though, as you can see in the last pic of my first post it is working fine now, it was just one of a few teething problems.
As you can see there are quite alot of LED's
The water temp light did cause me a few problems, i think i had a dry soldered joint between the LED and printed circuit board, every time i tested it, it worked and when i put it back together if didn't, typical. Sorted it in the end though, as you can see in the last pic of my first post it is working fine now, it was just one of a few teething problems.
As you can see there are quite alot of LED's
Edited by Rich912 on Thursday 13th January 22:00
Congratulations to the excellent job you did there. I feel the LED is too bright in the dark in mine, from your experience, would it be possible to just fit a variable resistor in the main feed for all the illumination LED's or maybe have the illumination LEDs fed from a different, lower voltage supply?
I took my clocks apart last week to refit the perspex that had been pushed into the needle, and since then the speedo needle has stopped working, come up with diagnostic code A. Also the lights have stopped working on the dash main clocks. Any ideas why? I've since removed it all and refit it to no avail! Also my mirror LED's (when you turn the lights on) will only turn on with the ignition switched off? As soon as the ignition is turned on they go out so something isn't right! The mirrors have sstopped working too. Damn TVR electrics!!! I did also remove my centre console to fix the reverse light so maybe something in there was disturbed, though the dash lights not working now is confusing me!!!
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