Dashboard lights and colors

[GatorTiger]

This topic has come up numerous times in the past with all kinds of self made solutions and all. Here is my take on da whol' ding...



While I was shopping for LED replacement bulbs (not entire lights!) for my brake lights I stumbled over this website ( http://www.superbrightleds.com/). Not only do they have the regular brake light bulbs, they had some for the dashboard, too!



I ended up ordering a couple of red 3 Watt Luxeon LED 15mm Bayonet Based LED Bulbs due to their 130 deg fill angle and some #74 LED Bulb in various colors to replace the dashboard lights completely.



Installation and function:



Brake lights:

take out bulbs out and put new bulbs in!  8) The new ones are incredibly bright and fill the tail light nicely over almost the entire back end. Due due their design the license plate illumination suffers a bit and is now in red. Time will tell if law enforcement has a problem with that.



Dashboard:

Well, turns out that the lights come in two different sizes for the dashboard! Clock and warning lights are smaller (the #74 bulb would fit), but all instruments have a bigger bulb size. (Did I mention I don't like RTFM? If I did I would have known...  :oops: ) Anyway...

The #74 LED Bulb is just a tad bit smaller in diameter than the stock bulbs (http://www.superbrightleds.com/specs/74_t15.htm), but about the same height. A bit of electrical tape around the perimeter helps keep the LED in place. Installation is old bulb out, new LED in (after the tape is on). No problems here.

The LEDS are not necessarily more extremely bright than the stock bulbs, but they illuminate more area and can be seen better in daylight! Biggest difference is the neutral light here. Now I can see it without probs during sunlight!



Two notes here:



1) The LEDs come on instantly! So when you shift through neutral the neutral light seems to 'flash'. Startling at first if you don't expect it, but one gets used to it.



B) The #74 bulbs are polarized (see website), but don't have a diode in them. So they will faintly glow in the off-state. During the day it's not visible, and at night you can see that it's there, but it's not distracting. At least not for me. So I won't do anything against it... Shows me that the LEDs didn't fall out...  

[GatorTiger]

I never liked the contrast of the instruments:



At day it's light background and dark numbers, at night it's dark background and light numbers. And we all know the point in twilight where the two meet and the numbers cannot be read any more. So if you keep the contrast the same day and night that cross-over point should disappear.



I wanted to try red lighting to make the green darker and get rid of the cross-over-problem. Since I didn't get the right size LED I could only replace the clock bulb with an actual LED. But now the clock is very nicely legible!!



My tank instrument light has been out for quite a while, so I ended up at the local auto parts store and got me some regular bulbs (tinted red, though!) and put one in. The difference in brightness between the red LED in the clock and the instrument is very apparent! LED wins! The green in the instrument is a bit harder to see than I thought (still ok though!) , but the contrast changes as expected! With a LED in the instruments it can only improve. So I will go ahead and order the right size LED this time and get them in soon. When I 'm all done I will try to get some pics up as well...



Cheers,

HG

[WIDGIN]

Gatortiger,



Was there a reason you chose red taillight bulbs instead of white?  Would  white bulbs fix the LP problem and still give increased brightness?  

WTF is RTFM?

Is there a size that fits instrument panel without "gad" tape?

Are the sizes you mention for Girly tigers or steamers?  



Regards,

[GatorTiger]

Was there a reason you chose red taillight bulbs instead of white?  Would  white bulbs fix the LP problem and still give increased brightness?

The regular bulbs have almost all-around illumination, some of which goes down to the LP. The LEDs I chose had the biggest illumination angle of all at that website (130 deg). So whether you have white or red the LP will not get that well illuminated because of the angle alone. I don't think the color would make a difference here. Yet when it comes to the visibility to rear traffic: both white and red LEDs have the same brightness. The red LED is all red light (duh! ;-) ), so the cover doesn't filter out much. All the light goes out. White light is composed of all colors and the cover will only let red through. Hence some gets filtered and the tail light appears to be less bright.



I am pondering putting a plain white LED in the white part of the cover for the LP... So far I have not made a final decision on that, though...

 

WTF is RTFM?

_R_ead _T_he _F_*&^(%$ _M_anual...  

Is there a size that fits instrument panel without "gad" tape?

Are the sizes you mention for Girly tigers or steamers?

Mine is a 2001 955i. I would guess it fits the 885i girlies as well. Not sure about the steamers...