Dash light color

Is it easy/possible to change the red light color that is used in all of the dash controls?

Red is physically difficult for human eyes to read and every time someone gets in the car they complain that its messing with their eyes.. no joke. It seems to take everyone a few seconds to adjust their eyes to a point that they can read the display. Anyone know how all of this is controlled? Separate LEDs in each control? I suppose I could open it up and find out, but I'd rather not do that quite yet (just bought the car) I'd ultimately like to try a blue color.

My college thesis was on the psychology of color. Red is scientifically proven to DRAW attention much better than blue hues. When subjected to long-term exposure, however, red can cause slight agitation and increased heart rate. Consequently, blue is "calming" and reduces heart rate. I suppose blue would be a smarter choice if you were subjected to extremely long night trips to avoid stress, but red is far more visible and demanding of the eye- and should make guage reading easier. Besides, the red is what makes the RSX cluster so cool.....not to mention the fact it will keep you awake, alert and less prone to falling asleep and crashing into my RSX. Maybe you just need glasses :2cents: In answer to your real question....I don't know a goddamned thing... :biggrin:

Well... when it comes to drawing of attention and color, I'd imagine that a lot of it would depend on the colors surrounding it... in this case black... red should stick out quite a bit. Although, as physics explain, red and violet are at opposite ends of the color spectrum being the most difficult to see by the human eyes. Although you are right especially since the surrounding environment is completely black and red certainly would "draw" more attention than blue. However, for the same reason that the military uses red filters on their flashlights, red is less noticeable to the human eye for a couple of reasons: 1) Red is everywhere in nature (flowers, animals, sunsets, etc etc etc) and 2) its at the end of the color spectrum.

On the other hand, when acura tried to decide waht color to use they had to consider other things:

Driving distraction
Style
and legibility

I'd imagine that Acura opted for the first 2.

Seems like youve read a lot more about this than I have though, I'm just going on what I recall learning in my physics class way back in the day in high school.

I agree with you that red in this environment may draw the attention, but it also become more of a graphic design issue when were dealing with text. Any professional graphics designer should tell you that you should never use red text as it is very difficult to read (when small at least).

Reguardless, the red bothers ME :biggrin: so I'd like to change it :biggrin:

looks like it will require that I change many many many bulbs inside the console making it not worth it. Perhaps I can dim the red a little. I should check the manual for that? Anyone got any other ideas?

I dont have a problem with the red too much, i just dim it about halfway at night with the dimmer. If its turned up all the way, yes it can be quite bright.

u can change the bulbs.... to blue if u like..pop the panel open and swap it out..as for the a/c contro and everything else i dunno..but i know on the dash its possible

Again, very old thread.

And yeah, search ClubRSX, its been done before.

actually, i know this is an old thread, but just to point out - as a color, red has the longest wavelength in the visible spectrum. longer wavelength = lower energy, so it's less likely to interfere with your night-adjusted vision than any other color. for a great example of this, sit in a dark room, and then turn on a red light bulb - you can stare right at it without hurting your eyes or really affecting your vision.

Yeah, that's why red LED's are used for night-flashlights.

Actually, the red is more useful at night. The Navy uses red light at nighttime because your pupils do not dilate as much as looking into a brighter color and allows you to see faster at night. Just think of when you look at a bright colored light and turn it off. It takes a lot of time for your eyes to be able to see in the dark due to the dilation difference that your eye goes through. The red light actually keeps the dilation difference to a minimum and you adjust faster.

Much like machine has said.

Yeah, so in the night you'll be able to see the REDline better. Not the Blueline :D