Dash Light Question.

[chuck16]

Can anybody tell me if the buttons for Recirc, Fresh Air, and A/C are to have lights behind them? At night it's kind of hard to find them but, I wasn't sure if the bulbs were just burnt out.
Any help would be appreciated.
Cheers

[jeverett]

If they do, mine don't light up at night. I'm gunna do surgery on mine one day and see.

[yankeeintruder]

Yeah there are lights for these buttons.......... but guess what........ THEY BURN OUT QUICKLY!! All 4 of mine are burned out. All of my friends' bulbs are burning out also! Real pain in the *ss at night.
The bulbs are real small and soldered in. I took the unit out and went to the elctronics store to see if I could get replacements. The gentleman there brought out his pea bulbs (that's what he called them) and none matched size wise. Said it appeared to be an unusual size. He also told me they are probably glued into the holders with epoxy. You might be able to unsolder the old ones out but still they might be glued into the little white holders. If you take the assembly apart, you'll see what I"m describing. He then asked if I knew if they were 6.3, 8 or 12 volt bulbs. No way of knowing by just looking at them or if there is an in line resistor.
Anyways, I asked about his LED light bulbs but all he had was red or green.
If anybody has any info on replacing these bulbs, they're probably a few of us it would help.

[chuck16]

Hmmm. Your LED Idea gives me an idea and I'll keep you posted on how it turns out. I have access to some white LEDs; so I'll see how they turn out.
Cheers
Evan

[jeverett]

Ohhh... I want Blue LED's for mine..if that works then I could replace the speedo lights w/ blue led's and the door switches w/ blue led's and itd look kickass!@!#$$

[yankeeintruder]

Alrighty then!!! I'm also lookin' for the LEDs'....... white though....... LEDs' will last longer and be somewhat brighter. But then again, I'm wondering what volt we need....... In the electrical schematics in the Haynes book it looks like there are resistors in line but I'm not sure if they're for the bulbs or what.
By the way, when you get this control unit apart there are several sets of bulbs on the board and there are several LEDs' already mounted. They light up the little orange dot on the push button to show that button as being powered.

[chuck16]

SUCCESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So last night, I ripped out my HVAC control set and took the unit itself apart. There is just something dis-heartening about removing the HVAC Controls and not having any mechanics attached to them.
Anyways, I de-soldered the old burnt out bulbs behind the Recirc, Fresh and A/C buttons and installed my Low voltage LEDs with an Inline resistor. I measured the voltage there and there is 9.25 Volts which seemed kind of odd to me as I would have expected a full 12 Volts there.
Tested the first one and it worked. The only problem I had was the LEDs were too long so I had to bend them over. However, it still gives the same effect and it looks awesome. Oh and Jeverett, I couldn't help but, try your idea and install blue ones; they look awesome in there.

Here are some pics of the installation:
http://vvv.com/~evan/pimages/HVACled.jpg and
http://vvv.com/~evan/pimages/HVACleds.jpg

Sorry the pics are so blurry, Cheapo Digital camera.
Happy soldering, now on to the Stereo.