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1st off this isn't my own work this chap is the pioneer AFAIK.

I've had the bit's laying about for a bit and decided that the time was right, oh how wrong could I have been.

Typically I didn't take too many photos and those I did take were with my phone, but the link above has all you'll need. If you want a different colour use the appropriate plastic and LED's. I'm sort of wishig I'd gone for the Italian flag colours, but it's a bit more tricky to get the tacho in white.

So dash out, opened up and board out. So far so good!

As part of the job I put in LED's in place of the little bulbs, but they were such a tight fit I had to modify the holders a bit.

BEFORE


AFTER


They are now a very tight fit, but work just fine. Need to make sure they are the right way round to work, but they didn't go pop when in the wrong way, so that's nice.

Here's a couple of shots fitted to the holder



So onto the LED install and all's well that ends well (eventually). Initially I used a stiff wire that broke solders and pulled stuff apart, so I changed to a more flexible wire which was better.

My method of getting power was to solder the leads to the bulb holder cages and then reinsert, whih works as that's how it's working now. However there's not much room and I was a bit overzealous with the solder and created a short.

Interestingly, it's not a bit difficult to tell when you've shorted your dash, 'coz it smokes like buggery. Fortunately the damage wasn't too severe.

see the burnt track


Easily fixed


So all back together and try it out. Phone camera doesn't do it justice, the AF1 link is more representative of the actual outcome.



I'm happy enough, considering that for a bit I thought I'd fried the dash.

Looks good Dale

There is another method that I saved off off the AF1 forum several years back - basically what you have to do is to change the colour of the filter sheets on the back of the LCDs.

If I can find it I'll post that one up too so that anyone who is inspired to have a go has a choice of methods.

I'm tempted to change mine so it's all red. Nothing against the green, but red is supposed to be easier on the eyes when riding at night.

Mind you, that's also on the list of things I should "get around to". Along with fitting the HID kit, sidestand, rearsets and tail-tidy...

I tried this over the weekend but the results I have are poor. I used the guide linked instead of replacing the bulbs as falcopops did.

I have red LED's behind the LCD panel and a thin sheet of red tint transparent sheet (called gels in the DJ world apparently).

All I get is red dots with very little spread of light. The red dots aren't too visible, either.

Does there need to be a pretty big air gap between the LED and LCD panel to achieve the desired effect?

The LCD has a green backing - I thought this was part of the actual LCD and couldn't be remove. Perhaps I was wrong?

Any suggestions welcome.

Dale

I used a couple of sheets of blue transparencies, which might help to diffuse the light a bit better.

My way still gives the dots, but with the additional leds in the old bulb holders I think it helps.

I did leave as much a gap between the strip leds and the backing as I could to help with the spread of light.

Falcopops wrote:I used a couple of sheets of blue transparencies, which might help to diffuse the light a bit better.

My way still gives the dots, but with the additional leds in the old bulb holders I think it helps.

I did leave as much a gap between the strip leds and the backing as I could to help with the spread of light.

Cheers.

I'll have to give it another go at some point.

Thanks,

Dale

Hi all,

Just to follow on the dash theme, has anyone looked at those oso dash replacements? Very bright, would there be too much work on the loom...

You'll need LED's with as big a viewing angle as possible, a lot of them have very focused beam patterns which will give very definite 'dots' of light. You could try rubbing them with fine wet and dry paper, or soda blasting, or similar, to give the lenses a 'frosted' look and spread the light more evenly.

For anyone doing this in the future, by far the best thing to do is simply remove the green silicone filters from the leds and remove the green backing filter from the LCD (this hasn't mentioned in anything i have seen previously, but they do come out quite easily).

Then insert the filter gel of your choice in its place and you end up with this:

Dalemac wrote:For anyone doing this in the future, by far the best thing to do is simply remove the green silicone filters from the leds and remove the green backing filter from the LCD (this hasn't mentioned in anything i have seen previously, but they do come out quite easily).

Then insert the filter gel of your choice in its place and you end up with this:

...........

D-Rider several posts back in this thread ... in 2009 wrote:Looks good Dale

There is another method that I saved off off the AF1 forum several years back - basically what you have to do is to change the colour of the filter sheets on the back of the LCDs.

If I can find it I'll post that one up too so that anyone who is inspired to have a go has a choice of methods.