This is my first attempt at a major DIY. if anyone thinks i left something out or should include something else, feel free to let me know. Also feel free to ask any questions.
This DIY is for changing the illumination color of the Climate control screens & compass. I didnt think it was too hard, but i would say you need a decent amount of electricial background/knowledge, enough to make a led strip. (unless you can buy one that would fit.)

Finished Product:




Materials:
17 LED's, color of your choosing. (Brightest Possible, Remember the screens have a somewhat orange tint.Resistors for LED's to operate at 12v.
Soldering gun & solder
Breadboard
Basic tools (screwdrivers, wire cutters, pliers ect)

First, remove the assembly from the car. to do this, first remove the little hat cover.


Next, remove the plastic tray in front of the screens by pulling on one side and unclipping it.


Unscrew, then remove the entire assembly. it might take a bit of moving around, but it will fit out.



Unplug the connector and unclip the harness from the front of the assembly.



Once out, Remove the clock power wire, followed by the clock unit.




then unscrew and remove the back panel of the screen assembly.



*note- i took these pictures on the putting back together phase, so your unit will not have the random wires running around on them. yet...*

next, carefully remove the board and the screen boxes. (white things attached to board.)


choosing one to start with, carefully remove it from the board. To do this, the plastic clips that go through the board must be disconnected, and the screen pulled straight up. mind all the little signal wires going to the screen.



at this point, the bare board will be exposed, with all the little stock surface mount LED's on it. if you really want to, you could go through the trouble

of removing them all, but i just decided to put a piece of electrical tape over them.


Cut the breadboard into a strip that will fit inside the screen box longways, then make it wide enough that you can comfortably fit the LED's and Resistors on it.

next step is to make the LED strip. for mine, i used 7 LED's per side, and 3 for the compass. use as many as you deem bright enough. if you look at the
picture, you'll probably notice that the led's are weird looking. ive found the best way to make an led throw a nice, wide even light, is to cut the top off
and make it flat. (grinder, dremel, saw.. whatever you want to use. however, be prepared. it smells. be ready with some excuse as to why your work area turned into something that smells like a factory. they also make lots of dust, nice fine white powder. idk what LED's are made out of, but i can almost 100% assure you smoking it is a bad idea.)


after trimming my LED's, i placed them on the board, and glued them into place. i tried to point them in all different directions in hopes to best cover the screen and eliminate hot/cold spots. Once glued/soldered/wired, you should end up with 2 12v leads.


next, test it. power the LED's, put them on a flat surface with the screen box over the top, and see how it looks. adjust as necessary.

once the strip is done, cut/drill a small hole in the side of the box to allow the wire to exit. then mount the strip (i used hot glue, but you can use
whatever works. just make sure the back of the LED board is covered and doesnt short out to the circuit board.) route the wire out the hole, and the pop the screen back on the board.




repeat process for other 2 screens. leave enough wire on each screen so that it can reach the left from the front (compass) side.


last issue is the power. for ground, i found one of the holes on the board that had ground and soldered a small wire through it.
for the hot, i found a wire that was the origional illumination wire. ( I did this a few weeks ago, and i remember while trying i noticed that the new LED's
acted slightly different, just dont remember how. Something with the startup sequence. all i know is this way they lit, dimmed, and turned off.)
for the hot, i picked it up behind the compass. looking straight at the back, on the right side, you will see the four holes for the compass screen. ( i
accidently used one of them for the wires to go through, so just cut one of the compass latches.)
in between the inner latches, theres a chip labelled TR805. its got 2 legs going in one side(inboard) and 1 leg comming out the outside. its the outside leg you want to use to tap power from. i put a small piece of wire through one of the 2 holes, then soldered it in place and connected the power lead.
lastly, connect all 3 screens to this power feed. (NOTE- Screens are polarity sensitive!!!)
be sure to electricial tape all the connections.





before putting everything back together, i would test it to make sure everything works. if its good, then re-assemble the assembly (FIRST- Clean Screens!! any fingerprints will drive you nuts. then place board back in, then screw on back piece. Make sure no wires are in the way of the compass button.), pop the clock back in, and re-install.


I hope this is coherent, I tried to make it as sensible as possible. if theres any questions or comments, feel free to let me know. Also, if anyone is really interested, i can try to put a kit together with all the LED's premade and find wires to tap into.

Enjoy and good luck!

Chris

 

thats gonna be nice with your new blower...

 

Nice end results, but wouldn't it just be easier to desolder the existing LED's and replace with the color of your choice? Was there a reason you went with a whole new board?

 

i was just gonna ask the same thing

another question. on one of the pics, the numbers still look amber but on other look white. which one is it? and case those be changed too?

 

i could have done that, but i find it much easier to solder and make my own breadboard than try to solder on the factory one. for other things like the radio and switches, im going to use the stock board, but because of the ample amount of space in these, i found it easier. i also only had a really big soldering gun handy at that time and that would be quite difficult lol


the screens are interesting. they basically block all light, and allow it through where the signals tell it to. im not sure if by design or to match, they have a slight orange tint. in person, its hard to see any orange. if someone didnt know anything about them, they would say their white. If you dim them down, the orange gets slightly more noticeable, but not alot.
my guess would be that if you went with any other color it would be much less noticeable, just that any tint at all on white would make them appear like that color.
ill try to get more pics of it when i get the car back. havent seen it since the 29

 

edit- i just looked again, the one that looks really orange had flash. that probably reflected some back

 

hmmm that seems like alot of extra work, I just replaced all the orange ones with red ones and it looks awesome, Ill put pics up later in my own thread and you can compare.
I changed the clock to white, but in the process broke it, those tiny hair wires inside of it suck when you dont know they are there and you pull it apart.

looks good from what I can tell, get some dark shots.

 

I guess I would have found it easier to just desolder the OEM ones and resolder new ones in. To each their own!

 

so true! then again, your alot more expierenced at this than i am.. your an EE and im just startin to be a ME... yeah you win. lol
those little surface mount ones drive me nuts tho..
unfortunately i cant really find white ones for the climate control/stereo..... boo

 

You can't find the surface mount resistors or the ones like you used for this project? Check out http://www.digikey.com They have almost everything If you're looking for the surface mount LED's, They are probably 0805 LED's... maybe 0603