I recently had my gauges and hvac control LEDs swapped out to white by Sean at LEDmod.com, and while everything looks great, there are 2 little things bugging me.

1: the needles aren't as red as I had hoped. In the sunlight with the headlights off they look fine, but at night when everything is lit, they're kind of a light pinkish color. Is this something that can be fixed by redoing the paint under the needles or will I have to swap an LED to red? I read in the needle color changing thread that there's an LED that goes under the needle but I didn't notice one on pictures of the circuit board.

2: The red markings on the redline on the tach and temp gauge, while red in daylight, also light up as a kind of magenta. Is this something I can fix by maybe painting the back of the redline with a thin coat of clear red like the paint used on the needles, or will I need to get a gauge overlay?

Here are pictures:

 

You can paint your needles. It's just the bottom side of it that is painted. There's a colored cellophane that you can put behind the red bits on your faces to darken them up, but I'm not sure where to get it. Be careful if you decide to try to paint the back of the guages, as the solvents will cause them to peel...

 

how much did they charge you to do that work?...Im wanting the Blue LED Cluster and HVAC/Waterfall LED Swap done.

 

$250 but he sells the kit for like $20 or so if you want to do it yourself. ledmod.com

 

that red, redline looks pretty red to me... you're probably just used to the darker color when the gaugefaces were lit with that orange led.

not sure how much more red the needles can be if they look pretty red when it's not lit. swapping the leds out to red would not work out so well without some extra rigging involved which i wouldn't have done.

 

Yeah I would do the kit myself, I just need learn to solder a lot better LMAO!!! The LEDs are so tiny as well, but well worth the wait and patience to do.

 

you could try replacing the bulb for the light to make it brighter? maybe it would work.

 

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the problem is he DID change the leds out and now it is too bright, washing out the red color... to apparently something he does not like.
hmm.. to the OP... you try dimming down the gauges? or do you love the bright white light..? it's going to have to be one or the other in this case.

 

No matter how dim I make them, it always comes through as a magenta color. It looks like the stock gauge overlays weren't made for this kind of light.

 

i dunno... your eyes might be too used to the red color when it was lit up from the darker color orange led lights.. but they have always looked red to me.. but yea.. it is a little brighter in hue..

i can't see the magenta or pink though..

 

I would repaint the needles with a better paint, or maybe darker paint...And as far as the red goes, try talking to a sign company and ask them to hook you up with a small sample of red self adhesive translucent vinyl, and then just lay that on the back of the gauge face, that will give it a deeper red on the redlines...You could buy a sheet from www.garage1217.com, but that may be a lot more than you need...But you never know, if you contact him, he may send you a small amount through standard mail so you wont have to pay too much, he's a real good guy...

 

I would suggest painting the needles a darker shade of red. As for the vinyl try using a double or triple layer of vinyl. When I did my friends I used a double layer of red vinyl. This is how it turned out:

 

So that's all white LEDs with red vinyl behind the gauge face? that's perfect, I'll hit up a sign shop soon. Thanks guys!

 

if you pay for shipping, i can send you a small piece for the gauges.

 

I can make both the needles darker and the red areas darker / more vivid if you like. No new painting required. A little trick I do on all of my swaps. Shoot me a PM if you would like.

 

If you needed little more Red, let me know.. I'll take care of it for you....