Blue LEDs in a 94 Stereo

[AK49BWL]

I'm not asking how to do it. I'm in the middle of figuring out what I'm going to potentially need to get it done. This may be a project in futility, but heck I've already fixed a nonfunctional Tape Eject switch, so I'm well on my way imo lol.

These tape decks are lit up in a way I've never seen before... The switches have LEDs already, but they're IN the switches. What I have discovered is that the little LED is in fact separately removable... All I have to do is find one that will fit in its place! Also ordering up some 360* angle output LEDs for everything else, and we'll see how well they light these 3-piece decks up!

I might need a bit less cluttered project table lol.

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Yeah I broke the leg on that LED... Didn't get the solder off it before pulling it out. This board had three switches that didn't work, now it only has two that don't work, and I'm fairly certain I can fix those too. If not... No big deal. I have six of these things

I'll be keeping this updated as I go. My eventual goal is to have everything outputting blue, including the displays.

 

[AK49BWL]

Huh, blew my mind just now. The one bulb that lights up on the equalizer circuit board is easily removable.

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Putting an LED in that one is as simple as pulling off the white piece, removing the existing bulb, inserting the LED, and putting the white piece back over the two prongs below it.

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The row of pins on the right: bottom trace goes to the light and only the light - I'll simply add a resistor on the wire that goes to that pin, as that wire carries +12v. Almost too easy...

 

[AK49BWL]

Progress..

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Resistor replaces the dimmer line pin from the main board. The reason for doing it this way is because the dimmer line goes other places on the main board that I don't want to interfere with (probably to the LED display driver circuit). On the display board, this pin ONLY goes to the lights.

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Nice fit!

However .... I only wish this was an accurate representation of actual output.

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This is the more disappointing reality.

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You won't be able to tell it's blue-lit at all during the daytime, and even at night it's hard to tell.. I'm rather disappointed. These 360 degree output LEDs are either not up to the task, or the light distribution in the heads leave much to be desired.. Honestly I believe both to be the case. Sadly, regular or even flat-top LED bulbs distribute worse than these, creating massive hotspots in some places and NO illumination in others. At least the 360 LEDs distribute rather evenly, although there is a bit of a dead zone at the bottom fade button and the power button -- this is true even with the stock bulbs tho.

I can't even imagine how bad the older heads would look with these, considering they only have 3 bulbs rather than 7 to light it up...





The tape deck is going somewhat more rocky. The light distributor on it doesn't do crap for the equalizer buttons, except make a bright spot on the up-side of the far right (10k) button, leaving the rest mostly unlit. Notably, also a problem present with the stock bulb. The tape playback texts and the equalizer texts seem to take it well tho.

Picture is exaggerated...

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Resistor in-line and heat-shrinked

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I have to figure out a mounting option for the far right bulb, as there's no way for me to add a resistor in-line due to the buttons all having their own resistors and LEDs on the same trace as the backlight bulb. Gonna be tricky. And then there's the issue with the button LEDs...

Top is an 89 button board, bottom is a (somewhat gutted) 94.

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The boards themselves are quite close to identical (trace design has changes but the overall layout is the same), but the LED bulbs changed.. They went to a surface-mount-esque bulb on the later ones. Also notable is the buttons themselves are the same, which means the LEDs between the two are interchangeable, as well as the black and gray button caps. Now I'm on the hunt for those little LEDs.. Look to be 2mm, maybe 1.5mm. Haven't pulled any of them from the 88-89 boards yet to get an accurate measurement.

Well now I have. 3, 5, 12mm LEDs for comparison lolol

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Looks like I'm dealing with a 1.8mm side-lead LED. I might have enough space to fit a standard 1.8mm round-top, but I need to test this before I go buying a bunch of LEDs only to find that they interfere with the switch travel.

 

[df2x4]

Been enjoying your posts about messing with the factory radios lately. Nice work!

 

[AK49BWL]

Been enjoying your posts about messing with the factory radios lately. Nice work!

Thanks It's been fun and something to keep me from going out of my mind on my (currently extended due to work calling me off) weekend lol.

This oughta work for the tape directions.

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It looks like there's a LOT of bleed-through to the other direction indicator, but that's just the picture - it's not much bleed. You can DEFINITELY tell which side is playing lol. It's nice and bright on the outside!

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No, my finger isn't bleeding. My camera just hates blue apparently.

May have figured out a workable solution for the right side backlight. Dremel FTW?

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It JUST fits. It's super tight on that end of the deck, and this idea may not pan out after all. That's why this is my prototype board and I'm leaving the good board until I know how all of this is gonna go down

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With the tape deck behind it, I don't have any room to put on a resistor. So, I just ordered even more LEDs, to include the 1.8mms I need for the buttons Stay tuned!!!

 

[AK49BWL]

Y'all.... I'm spazzing......over how awesome this looks

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I'm not prepared for the full unveil yet so you'll have to wait

 

[AK49BWL]

My LEDs came early I really wasn't expecting them to show up until either tomorrow or Monday, but they showed up halfway through the week instead. Top right is what the 1.8mm bulbs look like without modifications.

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It JUST BARELY doesn't fit in the switch as-is, so some dremeling modifications had to be made. I flattened out the top, and shaved off some micrometers from one end. I love my Dremel.

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It fits now! Installed it to the board...

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and of course the picture in the last post is the result of that So now, we can move on to ALL of the switches! All gutted out carnage:

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Rebuilt.

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Added the tape direction indicators permanently, and black button caps!

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Moving on from that....

Ooooh, what have we here? More Dremel fun!

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Oh yes. I'm going there.

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HELL. YES.

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The green piece is about 1/16" thick... The blue is 1/8" give or take. The display board holds it in place perfectly, I didn't even need to glue it. Now, unfortunately, this isn't going to go so well on the stereo head, because of how that display is put together... The front panel sticker that surrounds all the buttons and display actually HOLDS IN the green filter, and the only way to remove the filter is to remove the sticker... Which is not as easy as it sounds. Plus, the issue with the filter thickness. I'm either going to have to get creative some more, or.........something.

As for the tape deck.... Now all I need to do is get the backlighting sorted out, and the tape deck will be DONE!

 

[CorvairGeek]

I'm so glad the later, double DIN radios are far easier to retrofit with 3mm LEDs. You have a lot of work in that!

 

[AK49BWL]

Yeah I've done LEDs in the 95-02 1.5 DIN radios many times, they usually go easily and come out nicely, but these.. Mmmm, completely different animal lol.

 

[cnowalk]

When I was a kid, I loved the stock radio set up in my dad’s ‘93 C1500. And after flipping through a custom truck catalog and seeing different color options for gauge clusters, I thought about how cool it would be if the display was blue instead of green. I still think that’s cool and I’m excited to see what you’re working on here.