Cluster Dial Color Change

**unikarl** · 04-04-2011 04:03 AM

I've changed the colour of my dials again so I thought I'd do a write up for those of you who are brave/stupid enough to have a go!

First thing you need to do before anything else is take a picture of how your dials are now.

Tools needed are T10 and T20 torx driver, flat screwdriver, tweezers, soldering iron and solder, solder sucker is handy but not needed. I get my LED's from Farnel but I'm not sure if they have a distibuter across the pond.

Step one...Remove the dials...

Pull off the blanking plate that sits between the buttons on the front of your clocks. This will reveal two T20 torx screws. Undo these then pull or push the dials out. Its sometimes easier to remove the fuse box cover and push them out from the back.

Step two... Stripping the dials down!

Lay the dials on a soft surface on their front. This will reveal 4 T10 screws. Undo these and the back cover will come off...

Next you need to remove the front. Just unclip the tabs around the screen...

You will now see 4 sets of blue wires. All these need unplugging then the dials will drop out..

The two smaller dials will be left in place. These simply pop out using a screwdriver...

Now the needles need to be removed. I've found the best way to do this is to use two teaspoons opposite each other. Place these under the base of the needle and push down gently...

After a bit of gentle persualsion the needles will come away so that you can now remove the dial covers. This will reveal a white plastic section that also needs removing. Undo the two metal clips over the LCD displays at the bottom of the clocks (leave the centre display alone) then prize out the connecting tabs and it will come away from the circuit board. You should now have something looking like this..

There are 5 LED's for each of the larger dials and just one for each of the smaller that need replacing. Each LED is a PLCC2 and is a nice easy unit to work with.

You can see the LED's that have been changed illuminated here..

Step 3... Soldering!

Each LED has a small notch out of the corner. Its best to mark up where the notch is using a marker pen so you don't get your new ones the wrong way round. De solder the old LED and then re solder in your new LED ONE AT A TIME. This way you have much less chance of getting any the wrong way round. Use tweezers to hold the LED in position as they are far too small to be accurate using your fingers.

To chech you have done the job properly, its best to plug your dials back into the car and test before fitting everything back together. I have also changed my needles to white. I can do a seperate write up on that if anybody is interested.

Step 4... put it back together.

Once you have soldered in all your new LED's and tested you need to put it all back together. Remember the picture you took at the start. This is where that comes in handy. Look at where your needles used to rest and resit them in the same position. Re clip and screw everything back together. Put the dials back in the car and wait for the dark to arrive!

**makav3li** · 04-04-2011 04:13 AM

god damn thats sexy as hell man, i wish i had the balls to do this, i may just have to muster enough nut sack to give this a shot, good writeup man

**BASARAB** · 04-04-2011 08:19 AM

well done, thanks for DIY

**[email protected]** · 04-04-2011 11:50 AM

I should have never clicked to read this thread

Now I want to make my backlighting VW blue

**yayjohnny** · 04-04-2011 11:51 AM

Wow, nice!
Put this in the tech sub-forum! gogo
Good writeup

**Coderedpl** · 04-04-2011 11:53 AM

Nice DIY, but damn, too much fooking around for me, but it's a nice step towards the extra "touch"

**XCELR8** · 04-04-2011 12:02 PM

How much to ship to England, switch, and ship mine back lol

**rjkotler** · 04-04-2011 12:05 PM

This reminds me of the B5 S4 all red dash. Very cool.

Good DIY but it might be a bit involved for me to do on my own.

**XCELR8** · 04-04-2011 12:18 PM

Wish I could find a spare cluster I could try it on instead of messing up mine.

**ADV.1 Matt** · 04-04-2011 12:23 PM

Excellent DIY! Thanks for the writeup!

**unikarl** · 04-04-2011 12:46 PM

No probs guys.

Can't be too much to ship to england!!!

**XCELR8** · 04-04-2011 01:10 PM

If I found an extra dash I'd send it to you for conversion :)

**Boxmods360** · 04-04-2011 01:59 PM

White needles FTW!

**Mc Suly** · 04-04-2011 03:29 PM

NOICE DIY!!!

Looks really good all red.

White needles = sexy.

**unikarl** · 04-05-2011 02:07 AM

Couple more pics for those interested. The colour looks rubbish but it's just the poor camera on the iPhone 4.

Needles!

Clocks at dawn..

Close up...

I really need to get a decent camera!

**thenofjboy** · 04-05-2011 07:30 AM

Impressive DIY & Love the white needles!

how long did this take you to do btw?

**DRAKLORE** · 06-23-2011 08:18 PM

Awesome awesome awesome ! I will be doing this lol

**BMT62688** · 12-31-2011 09:40 AM

I am looking to do this to my gauges soon but I also want to do the needles I seen you said you could do a separate write up for them if people needed you to I assume you never made one because I can't find one I was wondering are they the same LEDs and what's different about changing them

**jvis08** · 01-20-2012 02:05 PM

Originally Posted by BMT62688

I am looking to do this to my gauges soon but I also want to do the needles I seen you said you could do a separate write up for them if people needed you to I assume you never made one because I can't find one I was wondering are they the same LEDs and what's different about changing them

I changed the background led's for the needles to a bright white as the stock ones were too dim. I used some acetone and gently rubbed off the reddish coloring on the back of the needles and painted it with a white luminescent paint that i bought off of ebay made for the needles.

**airbornerifleman** · 03-15-2012 11:34 AM

OP: Looks good. Where did you buy the LEDs?

I will be getting someone to replace my chime speaker in the cluster (the one for lights, keys and warnings. Not the one for seatbelt). While the cluster is apart I wouldn’t mind getting it modded. I really like the VW blue, but with everything else being lit red, would the blue look out of place? I know for a fact (Army) that RED is the best color for night vision and blue is one of the worst. I wouldn’t mind making the dials RED and the needles white like the OP. The guy that is doing the work for me said he might be able to just put a filter behind the dials instead of changing the LEDs. I will post the results here.

Questions to everyone, what color would you get? :

Needle color?
Dial color?

**CorneliusRox** · 03-15-2012 01:04 PM

Originally Posted by airborneriflema

OP: Looks good. Where did you buy the LEDs?

I will be getting someone to replace my chime speaker in the cluster (the one for lights, keys and warnings. Not the one for seatbelt). While the cluster is apart I wouldn’t mind getting it modded. I really like the VW blue, but with everything else being lit red, would the blue look out of place? I know for a fact (Army) that RED is the best color for night vision and blue is one of the worst. I wouldn’t mind making the dials RED and the needles white like the OP. The guy that is doing the work for me said he might be able to just put a filter behind the dials instead of changing the LEDs. I will post the results here.

Questions to everyone, what color would you get? :

Needle color?
Dial color?

So is the needle clear when there are no LED's on it?

Also I am interested in where you got the LED's. OEM Audi, just from different things on the dash?

**Ed Gein** · 04-06-2012 09:45 PM

i really want to do white needles with vw blue dials

**RoguesGambit** · 08-29-2013 11:00 AM

Wow, It is possible :D

Found my future mod once I move onto the Interior

**pule333** · 10-22-2013 02:06 PM

mission accomplished))) I have to say this is NOT easy. Do not attempt if not have enough experience with soldering. Those LEDs are 2-3mm across. There are 12 LEDs to change for main colour (blue in my case) and 10 LEDs for white needles. Not to mention doing paint job to needles as described by the OP! Great write up! Followed it to the letter and have succeeded. Took about 8hours all together. Chaffed with the results ;)

**p0isin** · 11-19-2013 04:04 PM

This DIY is great and made the job much easier. As pule333 mentioned this is a time consuming job that is not easy unless you have previous soldering experience.

EDIT: Finished the rewiring, fixed the cluster, and put everything back together

I am 90% done with everything, the only remaining items are to finish the backlights on the Temperature and Fuel Gauges. I went with a different color scheme and am happy with the results. Ignore the issues with the rest of the instrument cluster, the car is still having some issues after the massive rewiring project and is only half together

Daytime:

Nighttime (the lights only look orange in the picture, they are bright red IRL and match the center display):

**pule333** · 11-19-2013 05:40 PM

Originally Posted by p0isin

This DIY is great and made the job much easier. As pule333 mentioned this is a time consuming job that is not easy unless you have previous soldering experience. I am 90% done with everything, the only remaining items are to finish the backlights on the Temperature and Fuel Gauges.

I went with a different color scheme and am happy with the results. Ignore the issues with the rest of the instrument cluster, the car is still having some issues after the massive rewiring project and is only half together

Daytime:

Nighttime (the lights only look orange in the picture, they are bright red IRL):

Well done! Good job! This is one of those extra satisfying jobs as you know it's not something anybody can bolt on off eBay lol :) since than I did a similar job on my friends RX7 (1985)

but I had to make dials out of Perspex and design new stickers to ho on top

**p0isin** · 11-19-2013 05:58 PM

^^^ That's awesome. Thanks for the feedback

. I am so happy I finally did it after having waited so long. It is nice having done something that only a few others have tried.

**mscottdemarco** · 11-21-2013 08:24 PM

Whew just finished this DIY tonight. Thank you for the time you took to write it out. I want to add that I used very little extra solder and just heated the solder on the board back up. I used tweezers to hold them in place. I have barely any soldering experience and this was a fun DIY.

I found the LEDs on Amazon and bought a 5m strip of them, red and white. So I just wanted to put it out there. for $15 bucks a piece you get 120 white and 120 red LEDs. Heres a link to what I bought but you could buy any strips like them.

Red SMD LED 3528
White SMD LED 3528

And here is a pic of the finished product. Again. Thanks or the DIY

**Stanced_Audi13** · 07-10-2014 09:21 AM

So what do I exactly need to do to change the needles to either blue or white?

No one really mentioned in detail how they did the needles

**DannyDeez** · 09-06-2014 12:09 PM

Originally Posted by Stanced_Audi13

So what do I exactly need to do to change the needles to either blue or white?

No one really mentioned in detail how they did the needles

Read post #19 by jvis08. He explained it.

Good stuff guys!

**unikarl** · 09-08-2014 02:03 PM

Hi guys. Just did a search on Google for dial needles and a picture of my old a4 dials popped up on here. Sadly I sold my car in early 2012 as the mileage had gone over 200k and I thought I'd have issues.

Good to see my guide has come in useful for some of you anyway.

I'm now driving a vauxhall insignia (Buick regal?) that I've done a full led conversion on too.. I seem to have become addicted to making cars change colour since my a4!

**p0isin** · 09-08-2014 03:59 PM

This DIY helped me tremendously. Thanks for writing it!

**RoguesGambit** · 12-31-2014 08:40 AM

Originally Posted by mscottdemarco

Whew just finished this DIY tonight. Thank you for the time you took to write it out. I want to add that I used very little extra solder and just heated the solder on the board back up. I used tweezers to hold them in place. I have barely any soldering experience and this was a fun DIY.

I found the LEDs on Amazon and bought a 5m strip of them, red and white. So I just wanted to put it out there. for $15 bucks a piece you get 120 white and 120 red LEDs. Heres a link to what I bought but you could buy any strips like them.

Red SMD LED 3528
White SMD LED 3528

And here is a pic of the finished product. Again. Thanks or the DIY

Hey, where can I get LED's similar to that? I'm planning to have this done soon and got no idea where to look

**daverdfw** · 01-07-2015 02:46 PM

Originally Posted by RoguesGambit

Hey, where can I get LED's similar to that? I'm planning to have this done soon and got no idea where to look

In the US Mouser or Digikey are great for this kind of stuff check here

http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/...GZ6gqxmg%3D%3D

**B6A4Dave** · 01-08-2015 10:52 AM

This is bloody fantastic!

Im too much of a coward to do it...but its still awesome haha.

**p0isin** · 03-14-2015 08:54 PM

Here's my new Color DIS cluster ready to be cloned. I'll be upgrading from the Red DIS Cluster soon.
Faceplate from Ed@Gauged
Red Background LEDs
White Needle LEDs

It's hard to capture the cluster at night without making the red background LEDs appear orange.

The fourth picture captures the red color the best. The cluster matches the red color of the radio.

I like the look, it is a nice change from stock.

**diablizzard** · 11-15-2015 06:20 PM

So I went ahead and changed my guages to Blue with the white needles. I really like the way they look. Now because I'm nuts, I changed the 6 buttons on the bottom of the cluster to blue also. Next round of changes are going to happen to the headlight switch and window switches. I already opened the headlight switch and it has a different style of LEDs. If anyone has the specs on any of the other LEDs that would be much appreciated. I also would really like to change the color of the LCDs in the cluster. I changed the LEDs behind the clock and the odometer. I got a nice pinkish-purple, haha. I would like to find some LCDs that are blue, I noticed that the Passat odometer is set up the same but might be a little wider. Now for some odd reason I can't find the pisture of my guages. I'll have to get them up here If anybody would like to see them. The only thing different is that the 2 LCDs are oddly colored and the buttons on the bottom are Blue.

**p310b** · 01-28-2016 04:46 AM

This is cool!! Should tkae a picture with all leds on and adjust the color in photoshop for the best color combo.

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