Celica Forums General Discussion Exterior My New Mod New Gauge LED's

Just got these done last night, sean is f'kin awesome, hes located here in vegas, he was cool enough to come out to my store where i work and drop off the l.e.d.'s to me, im tellin ya if you are gonna change em hes the guy to get em from, quality shit right there. the whole process prolly took me about 2 maybe 3 hours, it came out pretty good heres some pics daytime, ill post some night time later.

hey that looks pretty nice Greg

nice is it hard to do?

shoulda got blue to match

thanks...its not that hard just time consuming, i did red cause im a superman freak so it was kinda going with a theme

good job, was it easy to solder on?

it was easy just really time consuming a lot of detail work

Can someone tell me what exactly i have to solder on???

I am planning to get gauge leds and i don't really understand what i have to solder.

New in this shit, so thanks for everyone that can help, it would be better, with pictures so i know what to do.

You have to solder the LEDs onto the circuit board. You also have to desolder the factory LEDs off.

Wow, so that's what the 04 cluster looks like? I like the gas gauge.

how much did you spend for the leds??

Shouldn't cost more than $25 if you use red for the speedo/tach, and blue for the gas gauge screen.

Blue LED's are the most expensive at a little over a dollar each.

wow..no money..damn...i want to do this so bad..

It's easy as hell to do. I never soldered anything in my life before I did it, and mine turned out fine. Even sprayed hot solder on the board by accident.

is it legal to have an all blue (except red for the redline) led gauge cluster? i've seen someone on here that has it that way, but i forgot who.

n/m fuck it if it's illegal.

I like what you did but you should have done the speedo and tach. Looks good but i preffer the look of the 2000 gas gage

What Intake is that? superman Intake?

^^^i think he just added that sticker.

so he can gain 1,000 whp because its superman who's powering it. (im just joking)

might just be a generic CAI

I would have converted everything to blue - flows better imo - but if it goes with your theme then it's all good...

Can someone post pictures of how to solder and desolder the led's??

it was like 998 whp on the dyno...nd yes its generic hehe

Took me a while to find out what you were talking about.

I can't post a pic, but I'll try and describe it as best as I can.

Soldering is an easy process. It envolves adhering something (in this case, a light emitting diode) to something else (a circuit board), with the use of an adhesive called solder.

Solder is an alloy or metal that has a very low melting point and is somewhat strong (depends on the type of solder you buy, and what you are using it for). It melts immediately after it comes in contact with a soldering iron, and hardens almost the same instant that the soldering iron is removed from contact with the solder.

The surface mount LEDs that you will be working with look like three small (very small) squares side by side in a row. The middle square is the LED itself, and the two squares on the side of the LED is the point that gets soldered onto the circuit board. One side is negative, while the other is positive. This is how the LED draws its power from the board.

Ok, let's say that you have an LED on the board that you want to take off. You have to do it in 2 steps...

Step 1:

Apply the soldering iron to one of the metal squares on the side of the LED. While applying the soldering iron to the metal, the solder under it (which adheres it to the board) will instantly become molten hot. At this time, with the soldering iron still making contact to the metal, pry up the piece of metal with something like a tweezers or a needle. YOU SHOULD ONLY TOUCH THE METAL SQUARE CONNECTED TO THE LED FOR A SECOND OR TWO AT THE MOST, BECAUSE THEY ARE SENSITIVE TO HEAT! These are very very small LED's, so you have to get something very small to do the job.

Step 2: Now one side of the metal should be off the board, and no longer stuck to it. Now, just repeat the process to the other side. Since one side is already up, and the other side is the only thing holding it onto the board, just grab the piece of metal that is already off the board, or the LED itself (gently though...) and gently pull up as you apply the soldering iron to the piece of metal that is already on the board.

Good job, you just removed an LED. Repeat the process like 40 more times...






Now comes the fun part, soldering an LED onto the board in place of one that already came off...

Now that you just took an LED off the board, you should see two little squares across from eachother, where the two little squares on the LED itself once adhered to. Let's just call these spots "heat squares." These spots can have heat applied to it (within reason) without damaging the board. These spots are the spots where solder is meant to be applied to the board. You will see them stand out from the rest of the board, trust me.

Step 1:

Solder comes rolled up, much like a spool of thread. Just find the end of the solder (no need to cut it off of the spool of solder) and touch it to the part of the board that you want the solder on, in this case, one of the squares on the board that part of the LED came off of. Now, while touching the tip of the solder to the square, touch the soldering iron to the same square, and the instant you touch it to the square, the solder should liquify and fill the square. Immediately remove both the solder and the iron, but remove the solder itself first, because if you remove the iron first, the solder spool will stick to the board. Remember what I said above, solder hardens just as fast as you remove heat from it. No kidding, it hardens that fast. This is also good, because the square on the board that contains the liquid solder will contain the solder to that square, and that square only. It will not spill onto any other parts of the board because only that square become hot, therefore, only that square could get solder on it. Now, one square should just be filled with solder. Do the same to the other square, because remember, the LED is held onto the board in these two places, and these two places only.

Step 2:

Ok, almost done, don't give up now. Grab the LED that you want to solder onto the board with a tweezers (GENTLY) and set it on the board so that both sides of the metal on the LED matches up with the metal that you just applied solder to on the board. Just set it there, it won't adhere to the board yet because the solder is hard since no heat is applied to it, get it?

Now, gently push down atop one side of metal on the LED as you apply heat to the metal on the LED. The heat will immediately transfer to the solder underneath it, and bond the LED (at least one side of it) to the board. Just remember to gently push down as you apply the heat, and you will see it bond. REMEMBER, APPLY HEAT FOR ONLY A SECOND OR TWO BECAUSE MORE THAN THAT WILL DAMAGE THE LED RENDERING IT USELESS!

Now, just repeat the process for the other side of the LED, and YAY!

The LED should be adhered to the board!






I'm going to soak my hands in ice now. School's out bitches.

well said thats it exactly hah

If someone who is contemplating this modification, but doesn't have the balls to do it , buys the LED's, ships the LEDs along with the cluster to me, and provides money for shipping back to the owner of the cluster, I will be more than happy to do the job for free for them.

But I will only do this for one person. The reason I want to do this is because I want to create a detailed guide as to how to solder and desolder these LED's onto the board.

Kinda like the guide I posted above, but only with detailed and numerous pictures. I will then post it here, so then NO ONE will have an excuse as to why they can't do this mod!


It will seriously be a guide for someone who has no idea what the hell soldering is, and for someone who doesn't know their ass from a hole in the ground. Just kidding.


But seriously, if someone is willing to donate their board to me for a few days (it will only take me a few hours to do, and I will mail the board back to them the day after I receive it), I would be more than happy to do this for free for them. You can drive the car without the cluster in, but you won't be able to see you speed or anything else obviously.




And since I will be doing this for free, in the .00000000001% chance that something should go wrong, I won't be responsible for it. Just covering my ass.

Thanks for the explanation.

Hey anybody who wants to know how to do this LED conversion...there's a really good explanation with step by step pictures under "installs"...I recommend it