Dash lights

The lights that light up the recirculating vent and A/C buttons on my 2000 Silverado are burnt out. These are the lights that come on so you can see the buttons at night. I removed the assembly that houses the buttons and the three knob controls and it looks like the bulbs for these two buttons are hard soldered in. Are these bulbs or LEDs? And does anyone have any experience replacing these little suckers? Thanks.

Yea, seems like they burn out fast. Must be under rated like the DRL bulbs are.

I replaced mine with LEDs......... used an in-line resistor of course. Just de-soldered the old bulbs and soldered in the resistors and new LEDs. Got an idea from Jeverett and used blue LEDS. (Thanks Jev...... turned out real nice!). I replaced all four right away. If you don't have rear window defogger/heated mirrors, you'll only have 3 to do.

The original bulbs are mounted in some sort of plastic cup and I reused this plastic cup by smashing the bulbs with needle nose and just pulling out the filaments. Then inserted the LEDs into the cup and reused. Made a real nice job. You'll have to test for positive side......... mine were all on the left side when looking at the control board when installed. Not much room for the resistors but by shortening up on the leads and bending them around it can be done.

The five bulbs across the top look like they're ready to go and I'm thinking about putting LEDs in there too.

Another project I'm thinking of doing is mounting a couple of blue LEDs above the map light buttons on the overhead console. At night they're hard to see and ya have to kinda feel for them........a nice blue halo around them would be nice. Anybody do anything like this yet??

No but sounds like a cool enough idea.
Here are some pics of my install with the LEDs in the HVAC Controls. I did the exact same thing but just doctored the install a little

http://vvv.com/~evan/pimages/HVACleds.jpg

http://vvv.com/~evan/pimages/HVACled.jpg

Let me know if you have any questions.
:D

Another project I'm thinking of doing is mounting a couple of blue LEDs above the map light buttons on the overhead console. At night they're hard to see and ya have to kinda feel for them........a nice blue halo around them would be nice. Anybody do anything like this yet??

That sounds like it would look whack...I'd like to see it if you try. I also need to replace the bulbs in my A/C controls..but haven't had the time. I wanna try putting blue LED's beind the instrument cluster also, and in the window and lock buttons.

Yankee..... How did you determine what LEDs would work for the HVAC lights and what resistors had to be used with them?

Yea, seems like they burn out fast. Must be under rated like the DRL bulbs are.

I replaced mine with LEDs......... used an in-line resistor of course. Just de-soldered the old bulbs and soldered in the resistors and new LEDs. Got an idea from Jeverett and used blue LEDS. (Thanks Jev...... turned out real nice!). I replaced all four right away. If you don't have rear window defogger/heated mirrors, you'll only have 3 to do.

MAMorse....... the local electrical parts store only had red and green LEDs so I looked on eBay and found some. I did a search for "LED bulbs" and came up with a ton of sellers.

There's a guy (seller ID is mckenkenken) who I bought off of. He's posted alot of items on eBay and has alot listed in "his store". You can do a search by seller only......... I think through "advanced search".

I got the 3mm blue bulbs with a rating of 4000-6000 mcd. Found out this is really bright and had to color the bulb some with a black Sharpie to tone down the brightness. He has some other blue bulbs rated 3000-4000 mcd. These probably would have been just about right mounted behind the the four buttons on the control unit. Although the brighter bulbs might suit me better for other lighting projects. He also listed alot of colors, sizes and brightness.

He also has the matching resistors for use in 12volt systems........ sells them with shrink tubing which I didn't use in the air/temp/fan control because they weren't needed. I also got some of the LED mounting holders he sells...... thought they might come in handy some time.

Shipping was fast from him and since I combined 4 different items, wasn't too costly.

Good luck!!!!!!!!

A/C for example: You used the 3mm bulbs and un soldered the old burn out bulb and just soldered in the new LED or did you have to install a resistor on them?

I wasn't really sure about replacing these lights with LEDs because of the need of a resistor and identifying the + and - side of the circuit. I found some 12V, 50mA bi-pin lamps at Radio Shack that seem to work fine. They are the same physical size as the old lamps, rated for 5000 hours, and fit the pin holes perfectly in the board. They are $1.50 each. Back up to a fully lit dash.

The nice thing about LED's though is that you should Never have to replace them. With lamps they tend to burn out more often...