tjmoney87

1. Take the cluster out of the car (this should be self-explanatory).



2. Take the outer cover out of the cluster (be careful, it is easy to break!)



3.Remove inner cover (black part) out of the cluster.



4. By now you should see all of the screws to remove the gauges.



5. Removed the circuit board cover to make everything easier...

tjmoney87

6. Here you can keep the gauges together as one after pulling up, or you can have them separated (which I did) by removing screw on the bottom of the speedo and tach.



7. Before removing speedo head, remove odometer head. PLEASE be careful, that odo head is on their pretty tough it would be easier to break the tab rather than the odo head!



8. Here is the EL tube and all it's glory...



9. These are the screws to remove the EL tube...



10. Pull up on the tube assembly and it should come out of the cluster's circuit board.

tjmoney87

11. Here is the room you have to work with...it's not much, but the LED strip I ordered from http://www.oznium.com/led-flex-strips fit like a glove. I used super glue to hold it together. Also the wires from the LED strip can be snaked through the holes left from the EL tube screws...



12. Put everything back together and tighten everything up. Use a 9V battery to make sure the strip lights up...



13. With everything back together...







It's wasn't bright at all (especially in the daytime) but it was on a 9V battery so...

tjmoney87

I decided to wire it up to the cigarette lighter...yes the gear shifter surround has to be removed and the radio/ climate control too, or enough to get to the cigarette light wires...





Wire the LED strip wires together with the cigarette lighter and put key in ACC to make sure it lights...it's very bright in the daytime...



Especially at night they are amazingly bright!

tjmoney87

Overall, this is an easy mod if you are careful, but if not, things can get ugly VERY quickly! I would recommend getting a second cluster just to practice...that's what I did, making sure I was careful enough and to make sure the strip fits. I like it because the cluster lights in ACC mode, but that's a personal preference (also because the cigarette lighter powers in ACC mode). Also at night, they are BRIGHT (but not bright enough to blind), and do not dim, unless you get a standalone rheostat, I may get one later...I wish I would have got an orange or red one, it would have really nice, but I can always change it out LOL... Also, I would recommend the Maxima's clear outer cluster cover, http://www.courtesyparts.com/24813-c...3-p-47148.html, our tinted cluster cover would dull things a bit...

Difficulty: 7/10

Pros: LED strip brighter than EL tube, no more dim cluster on one side !
Lights in ACC mode (personal preference). Several colors you could use (again personal preference).

Cons: If you are not careful, things can get ugly quickly! You will have to buy the Maxima's cluster to enjoy the LED cluster.

Here's a comparo...

Stock


After LED strip swap


My mom's '09 Altima


An '09 Camry

mrjamaica98mx

iTrader: (10)

good work u should have done blue

tjmoney87

LOL, I thought about blue, but everyone has blue! I might get red or orange in the future though...

burgy

iTrader: (4)

I may do this in red eventually...Nice work

sascuderi

Great job....Thanks for taking the time to figure it out and post your results!

din9lebeRrY

iTrader: (2)

WOW, nice DIY. I can see peopel finally modding their Instrument clusters now.. Sick work.

a33i30

iTrader: (4)

Thanks man, this helped out.

Uber-Oakley

Good write up. However, some might find the LEDs overpoweringly bright particularly when driving at night. I did a simple blue LED mod to my clock and when driving on the highway, I do find it quite bright so much so that it lights up interior. Meh. I guess that is what the dimmer is used for.

Good job either way.

a33i30

iTrader: (4)

Can you turn the brightness down? Stock lets you take it down.

tjmoney87

Not yet, I'm still trying to figure that out...I don't think that the LED's are too bright though probably similar to the '07 up Camry at night. I would be nice to have a dimmer though...

ZGadson

A dimmer works by cutting the voltage, which in an incandescent bulb means less current and less energy, hence less light. A LED bulb is simply on or off. There's no in-between. It takes such a small amount of energy to light the LED that with any less energy the bulb is off.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but with LEDs, you're stuck. They're either on or off.

tjmoney87

Hmm, the LEDs in my clock, radio, and climate control dim by the rheostat. I just don't have them wired up to dim right now... A standalone rheostat would solve that though...

sascuderi

The LEDs that I put in my clock dim too.

Well the idea of taking apart the cluster was too much for me so I took your adviced and purchased the clear cover from the link you gave above.

That seems to have solved my problem. Without the tinted cover I can read the guages just fine!

Never knew that the Maxima cover was clear and that it would fit the I30.
Thanks so much for the suggestion!



p.s. your "how to" should be a sticky!

made in china

iTrader: (7)

Couple things I noticed:
My I35 cluster with tinted cover is very bright at night and quite bright in the day. Was your CCFL burned out? You said it was dim on one side, is this a I30 problem, or one I can expect to eventually happen to my I35 cluster?

The exposure for your comparo shots isn't fixed. In the I30 shots, I can see the idiot lights for "before" are dim and "after" are over-exposed. It'd be better to fix your exposure when doing these comparos.

I like it, when/if my CCFL goes out I'll just do LED, thanks for showing us the step by step.

negative! LEDs CAN be dimmed by reducing the voltage. Likely with his setup there are several LEDs wired series-parallel so they will dim fine. LEDs are not linear like incandescent lamps of course, but they will dim. They will go from dimming to "off" suddenly around a certain point, but with these LED strips there is a useable range. I have used LED strips with car dash dimmers before, it works better than connecting to constant 12vdc.

Of course ideally you'd use PWM control to get linear dimming.

knight_yyz

iTrader: (40)

you can make the led's dim by soldering the wires from the led strip directly to the metal bars sticking out at the cluster plugins. Like this...


white plug contains the ground...


contains the 13-14 volts from the battery

knight_yyz

iTrader: (40)

positive pin

knight_yyz

iTrader: (40)

By the way... these photos are from an 03 Maxima cluster. Please check your FSM for the proper points to solder to for your particular car.

I30_2000

can i put an i35 cluster on my i30?

Kquezada28

wow i want to do that soo bad now

I30_2000

ye man me too

tjmoney87

You could but it taking re-wiring the cluster and it still would not read temperature. I tried that too.

I tried that soldering, but that was a no-go. It actually shorted the strip, so here's how it looks now...

513Chillz

So did you just put a red strip in the cluster to get this crimson effect?

mplomondon311

THANK YOU! I was wondering for the longest time how to do this. Thanks for putting up the DIY!

513Chillz

How long was the LED strip you used? We have the same car btw...

SASKID

This is great. I have been wanting to do this. Thank you for figuring it out for me.

SASKID

I am a noobie when it comes to this kind of stuff. I was wondering why you wired it to the cigarette lighter? Is it because the 9V battery did suffice for brightness?

And How did you get the cluster and shifter area cover off? I can't seem to find anywhere to "pry" or screw it off without damaging anything.

a33_ridah

iTrader: (10)

theres a few references to maximas in there. i have an 03 maxima and need a lighting solution to my dim cluster. is this the same procedure for a maxima? i thought it had traditional bulbs in there.
thanks

tjmoney87

I think it was the 9 inch LED strip, I got it off of eBay

Yup! That's all!

I started from the side of the shifter surround using a flat-head screwdriver and then pryed up. Lightly pull on the rest because it is easy to break.

For Maximas, I think you can find LED bulbs to screw in. A strip will not work, I tried that in the spare 03 Maxima cluster I have laying around.

Jackieoh

My cluster is getting dimmer.
Would you sell the EL tube to me?

hitman1702

i'm new to this too so pardon the ignorance lol, does the 2000 and the 2003 (maxima) cluster share the same pin to dim the gauges, and if possible could u post a pic of the bulbs if they r the same as the 2000 maxima thank u in advance??????

Legendman

iTrader: (1)

Im in the process changing my bulbs in the climate control cluster (two of them are out)

i have an 03 I35..
Where do I start to pry this sucker out??? or are there screws somewhere??
Oh and which bulbs do we use..?

any advise is appreciated..

Thanks!

beermonkey9417

this looks like a really kewl mod. i was actually thinking about doing something like this but just replacing the bulbs in the back of the cluster with leds from superbrightleds.com. nice writeup!

christopher.spitler

Thanks for the writeup man. My 2001 i30 is starting to dim out a little, and I want to put an LED strip in there.

However! Has anyone tried soldering to the points indicated above on a 2001 i30? I looked through the FSM and it gives me no indication as to where the bulb is powered from. I'm thinking about taking it apart and using a voltmeter. I want the LEDs but I'm not going to install another dimmer, etc when I already have one in the car.

I30boi

Ok so i tried this mod becuase my cluster glass was fracked already so in the process of that i threw in an led
But i messed up my gauges!

It seems everygauge i removed is either way to high or way to low wen i turn car on

I think its because i jus pulled the little needles off and a few of them seperated,
Anyways now i dont know whats up with my fuel/temp
Rpm and speed seem affected to but i hav yet to drive the car
Any help please! I need my gauges fixed!

Blackwind

iTrader: (9)

i MAY have a extra set of guages i can send you. let me check

TinkerMan

I know this thread is dead, but I found it helpful today and thought I would add some info.

I registered on this forum just to chime in. I was helping someone today with a 2000 Infiniti i60. The cluster was extremely dim on the left and barely visible on the right. I thought it was a series of incandescent bulbs needing to be replaced, like every other cluster I've worked on. Boy was I wrong. It had a freaking laptop bulb inside.

I came across this thread searching the internet for LED alternatives, and it inspired me to go to Advance Auto and purchase an 8" blue LED stick-on strip for $17 (it's actually 2 4-inch strips, which is great b/c of the shift indicator in the center). I ripped out the old cold-cathode bulb (and circuit board under the plastic frame) and stuck in the LED's (right on the plastic frame that held the old bulb), and it worked perfectly.

The real reason I'm posting is to explain how most modern car dimmers work: They use pulse width modulation, or PWM, to dim the display. That means that it sends 12v to the lights at all times, but when "dimmed" it only sends it for varying fractions of a second, giving the illusion of a dimmed display. Some new cars, and all of the old ones, did use voltage to dim, but from what I've seen most modern cars use PWM.

I connected the LED lights directly to the back of the dimmer control on the dash, using the two red wires. The wires on the back are 12v+ (side red), PWM out (center red), and GND (side black). The system uses an NPN transistor to "turn off the ground" at different duty cycles or pulse lengths.

TL;DR I used the two red wires on the back of the dimmer control to power the LEDs, and it dims perfectly with the rest of the lighting on the dash. (note that LEDs are polarity sensitive, so you may have to reverse the wires to get it to work)