Replaced My Instrument Bulbs With LED's

[emunder]

Love the way this came out. Before I swapped them out I could barely see anything at night. Went with the ice blue I found off of eBay.

[Gary Lewis]

I do like that/those!  Mine are way too blue, but the Ice Blue appears to be just right.

[emunder]

Thx Gary. They had another blue but it was more of a darker/richer looking blue in trying to describe it. This one is def easy on the eyes without it being too bright. Wish I could have matched the headlight/wiper switch lights like this but it is a totally different bulb.

[Frank Wyatt]

Mine were dim as well and hard to see at night but after changing my headlight switch they were much brighter and very easily seen at night now. I had been thinking that the rheostat in the headlight switch had developed too much resistance with age and contemplated changing the switch but had not gotten to it yet but got motivated to do so after the lights went out momentarily on a dark back road a few weeks back. Lookin good by the way, a nice shade of blue.

[grumpin]

Good find Frank!

[Rembrant]

Hey Emunder, I ordered a set of the Ice Blue LED's right after you did, and I'm very happy with them as well. I don't have a real good picture of them, but they'd be the same as yours.

[emunder]

Nice! They look great!

[Danny G]

Man those look good. My eyes don't do well with blue but that is more if the lettering/numbers are directly lit in blue. I was thinking about looking for some green back lighting myself.

I wish I could find a dimmable LED, sometimes the full on power of these are just too much as well. Have you tried them at night yet?

[fords4life]

Do you guys have a link to the ones you bought on ebay?

[Rembrant]

fords4life wrote

Do you guys have a link to the ones you bought on ebay?

These are the ones in my picture above, but the seller has them in several different colors/shades I believe...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/80-86-Ford-F100-F150-F250-F350-Truck-Gauge-Cluster-LED-Dash-Kit-Ice-Blue/273534768705?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649

[Danny G]

fords4life wrote

Do you guys have a link to the ones you bought on ebay?

I couldn't find his but found several on Amazon by searching: 194 LED bulb. There are a couple that offer "Ice Blue" more than likely one of them is the same seller.

https://www.amazon.com/DODOFUN-Ceramics-Interior-Exterior-Bright/dp/B07L8CXYKV/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=194+led+bulb+ice+blue&qid=1572964249&s=automotive&sr=1-5


https://www.amazon.com/YITAMOTOR-Reading-Doorstep-Courtesy-License/dp/B00YWXSL7A/ref=sr_1_6?keywords=%22Ice+blue%22+194+led+bulb&qid=1572964437&s=automotive&sr=1-6

https://www.amazon.com/iBrightstar-Extremely-Interior-Courtesy-License/dp/B07SW5FTYC/ref=sr_1_9?keywords=194+led+bulb+ice+blue&qid=1572964249&s=automotive&sr=1-9

[emunder]

These are the ones I bought (sorry Rembrant just realized this is the same link you posted). They are not too bright at night IMO & they will dim using the headlight switch.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/80-86-Ford-F100-F150-F250-F350-Truck-Gauge-Cluster-LED-Dash-Kit-Ice-Blue/273534768705?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649

Oh one thing to note...when you pull the instrument cluster there are blue plastic covers inside that shield the stock bulbs, I pulled those out. When I left them in the new LED's were too dim IMO. Took them out and it looks great. Not sure if this is the same for all the trucks but wanted to throw that out there.

[Danny G]

emunder wrote

 they will dim using the headlight switch.

This is good to know, I think I will have to pick some of that brand up myself.

[Rembrant]

emunder wrote

These are the ones I bought (sorry Rembrant just realized this is the same link you posted).

I got the link/recommendation from you in the first place, so I have to give all of the credit to you for finding them in the first place.

[Danny G]

noticed he had other colors but nothing pops like that Ice Blue. I am glad he has pictures of what they look like installed and on.

[emunder]

Lol...thx man.

[emunder]

I thought the green ones looked pretty cool too. Maybe a tad bright but probably look pretty cool dimming them down just a hair.

[Danny G]

Maybe Ill get both and test them out. But I think that Ice blue looks pretty crisp, and you get the nice orange needles as well because it has just enough white light to it.

I have some white 194 LEDs laying around, I could also try those with the stock teal filters.

[Gary Lewis]

I'm sure you are aware of this, but if you try to take comparison pics of the different lighting you'll have to put your camera into manual mode and use the same shutter and aperture settings for all pics.  Otherwise the camera will adjust the settings and try to make them all come out at the same brightness.

The way I've done it is to take a gauge cluster into a dark room with the camera on a tripod.  Power the cluster will 14v and take one pic on Automatic.  Find the shutter and aperture settings in the picture's metadata and then dial that in on Manual mode and take the remaining pics.