Speedo and Tach Guage LED lights

RedShift · February 03, 2006, 04:00:09 AM

Fantastic!! It's like we've got a Special Interest Group going here!! With Wairton Willy predicting an early spring, there's a lot of positive waves. PICS!! Bring'em on...

Thor S Magic Bathtub · February 03, 2006, 08:00:40 AM

I ordered mine on Sunday and still am waiting on them

I know it was a three day delivery for RedShift, what about you other peeps? The tracking number they emailed me isn't working, it only says that the post office was notified to expect a package, but not that they got one.

blue05twin · February 03, 2006, 08:40:05 AM

I ordered the blue ones they were in my mail box in 3 days

I hope you get yours soon.

annguyen1981 · February 03, 2006, 09:30:55 PM

I ordered mine sunday nite, and received them already.

Thor S Magic Bathtub · February 04, 2006, 10:37:00 AM

Got mine, I dig 'em. No tight fits for me, everything slid right into place.

annguyen1981 · February 04, 2006, 12:59:06 PM

Same here for the fitment. It was simple as pie too. I just undid the four bolts on the bottom, screw for the trip odometer, and the speedo cable. Did this in under ten minutes.

annguyen1981 · February 04, 2006, 01:09:11 PM

I forgot to mention that I'll take pictures tonight, since I have an '04f blue.

annguyen1981 · February 04, 2006, 07:33:10 PM

Sorry about the crappy-ass picture... My baby was parked in the corner, and I didn't want to move everything else to move her out. The headlight is shining right on the siding of the house, therefore creating some bright lighting coming back at me.

I LOVE THIS BLUE LOOK!!!

This is the best pic out of five that I took. It also doesn't help when I onnly have a 2.0 mp camera.

budget speed demon · February 04, 2006, 07:37:06 PM

Damn those look good!

RedShift · February 05, 2006, 10:22:25 AM

Very nice annguyen. We now have another thing in common.

We need someone to give a Night Ride report on the BLUE LEDs. Rained all day yesterday, then dropped snow. I won't be ridin' for some time to come. Someone closer to the equater needs to pipe in with impressions on readability.

annguyen1981 · February 05, 2006, 11:49:45 AM

Unfortunately, I do not have a helmet to ride with, so I won't be able to report on night-time visability for about two weeks.

My helmet is being repaired on the other side of the country in CA, and the ICON Mainframe Scorpion helmet I just ordered won't be shipped until this Tuesday. Today is such a nice day out, and I can't ride too far. I'm going outside right now to ride the side roads around my block. That'll hopefully carry me over till I get ONE of my helmets back.

fibes7 · February 05, 2006, 01:24:06 PM

is it tough to crack open the housing to change these bulbs? id like to do this but dont want to break anything, aslo anyone seen white faces for the gages? to go along
with the nice blue glow

Thor S Magic Bathtub · February 05, 2006, 02:08:01 PM

It wasn't tough to change them at all. I did it early in the morning when it was still dark outside and managed ok. It took a little while but most of that time was spent going back inside to warm my fingers up. Hardest part was unscrewing the speedo and tach cables from the back... they were in there pretty tight.
I don't think I've seen anybody mention that you need a tiny phillips screwdriver to take the trip odometer knob off, I almost had to go buy one because I didn't know I needed it until halfway through, but was able to dig one up.
I haven't seen any white faces for the guages, but that would look sweet if you found some that worked.

RedShift · February 05, 2006, 06:40:25 PM

I haven't heard of anyone needing to crack the case of the Spedo or Tach. The Clymer manual doesn't give any hints. But then unless you want to replace the gauge faces, I don't see any need.

I was able to wiggle the LEDs in without much difficulty. I didn't need to remove the reset knob for the trip Odo either -- just separated the bezel from the outer gauge cover to expose the wiring and access to the bulbs.

Keep it simple and it'll go back together just as easily as it came apart.

annguyen1981 · February 05, 2006, 06:45:58 PM

My '04f needed to have the knob removed in order to install the LED in the speedo.

I have found in the past a how-to on making your own custom gauges. It was geared towards a ford truck, but you can use the techniques towards any gauges. I'm gonna see if I can find it again.

annguyen1981 · February 05, 2006, 06:52:48 PM

Here's that site on how to make your own custom gauges

If someone decides to do this to their GS500, please share the photoshop files with us... That way one one of us will need to do the begining steps... (plus, I'm not that photoshop literate)

http://www.geocities.com/yeaulman/Gauges/Gauges.htm

RedShift · February 05, 2006, 06:57:08 PM

Quote from: annguyen1981 on February 05, 2006, 06:45:58 PM
My '04f needed to have the knob removed in order to install the LED in the speedo. ...

Bummer. I forget how constraining a fairing can be..

that_guy · February 05, 2006, 08:30:16 PM

I put in my blue lights finally today and they look great. very very bright but my gauges are a bit sunfaded sadly making the gauges look kinda hoopty, but still very visible.

annguyen1981 · February 11, 2006, 06:19:38 PM

Does anyone have pics of the purple?

RedShift · February 12, 2006, 03:36:04 PM

Yeah, I'd like to see PURPLE gauge backlight too. After having bought AMBER, RED and settling on BLUE, I've used up my LED budget.

Where's Pandy and her SV650S. Surely there's a 194 bulb behind her Speedo/Tach instrument that could be replaced with a PURPLE or RED LED.

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Speedo and Tach Guage LED lights