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LED conversion for the Climate-control; Writeup

10K views 54 replies 23 participants last post by  Satan 
#1 ·
so, i finally got off my ass to install the 16 LED's in my spare 89+ CC unit... (since i was staring at this 2002 WRX stock 6-disc in dash head unit and got all my electrical stuff out to solder the radio harness)

so, for the CC, here is what i ordered to change the Button/icon backlighting (im not changing the Selected-function lights).

14 x RL3-W3030; super white T1's, 30* viewing angle, 3000mcd
1 x RL3-B2030; 470nm Blue T1, 30* viewing angle, 2000mcd
1 x RL3-R4545; 627nm Red T1, 45* viewing angle, 4500mcd

the Up arrow of the Temp button is now Red, the Down arrow of the Temp button is now Blue. i ordered Aqua thinking it may be imply a "cool" impression, but it turned out to be more green than i wanted... so its now blue.

in order to Test the stock LED's on the board as to which leg was Pos and which leg was Neg, i needed a 3.0v-4.5v battery. i had 2 good AA batteries and 1 "bad" AA. the two Good ones tested at 1.5v on my dvm, the "bad" one tested in at 1.0v. i took my soldering iron, tinned the tops and bottoms of the batteries. i took some 14ga wire i have, and tinned the end each time before soldering them to the batteries. i soldered them in series and ran 2 leads off the first and last battery, and then taped it up so i have a 3-cell "pack" w/ bare leads. it measures in at 3.5v now. i used this to test my stock LED's for polarity before unsoldering. i used a Black Sharpie to mark on the Board itself which side was negative.

unsoldering the stock LED's is a Pita. you need like 3 hands to do this. one to hold the Board, one to hold the iron and one to take the tip of a steak knife and carefully pry the legs out as they are unsoldered. i didnt use solder sucker cuz i just didnt buy any. after i removed all the stock LED's, i took the tip of the iron and wiped it on a wet pad pad to remove excess Solder, rosin and such. when i touched the tip of the iron on the open pads on the board, it would wick away some solder. some careful manipulation of the solder allowed the holes to "open" up.

forming the Legs w/ the LED's from superbrightleds.com was fairly easy. the cross-section of the legs are 4-sided, not round. they also have stamped areas about 4mm down from the LED itself. at the bottom of these stamped pads is where i bent the legs at 90* outward. then about the same distance from that 1st bend, i bent them at 90* again. they line right up in the holes and drop in but need some muscle to get them to slide into the groove of the plastic positioning peg's. with all of them in, they look quite stock.

as for soldering, you want to be careful not to leave the iron on the legs too long because getting the LED itself hot will destroy it. of course, the easiest way for me was to hold the tinned tip of the iron about 8mm above the board, on the leg. the heat transfered into the leg and conducted down the leg to the hole in the board. you can "walk" the molten solder down from part of the leg touching the Iron down to the pad on the board. when the part of the leg going thru the hole gets hot enough to bond w/ the molten solder, itll flow into the hole and join the Leg to the Pad. the moment this happens, REMOVE the iron!!!! it doesnt take much longer for this heat to get past the part of the Leg you want to solder and travel TOO far up and get the LED itself hot. fortunately, the bends in the legs affords you some extra "wick" between the Heat Affected Zone (HAZ) and the LED itself.

if you made the LED tester like i did, you can then test the freshly-soldered LED to make sure you didnt overheat it and kill it. doing it like i said, all my LED's are functional and bright as Fcuk! i just have to find out which wires on the CC connector are for Illumination and ground so i can test all of them at once.

as i post this, im in the middle of soldering the remaining LEDs in but im going to test the Ill circuit to make sure its all kosher. i suppose ill put up some pics since im cool like that
 
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#6 · (Edited)
its really bright when its apart but shining thru the buttons, really dissipates the light output.

when i was testing the LED's, i shorted out the Red LED for the Temp Up arrow so i have to order a spare. i also ordered a whole extra set of LED's to do another CC unit if i happen to acquire a spare unit.

the Blue lights on that CC unit are still the stock green on mine, but the buttons are white like that.

one thing that became apparant are the cleanliness and condition of the buttons. if you have high-wear buttons or have been used with dirty fingers or simply high-traffic/mileage, the whit will not be PURE white. some of my more commonly used buttons are slightly dingy in appearance upon closer inspection.


This is the guts of the climate control taken out. its kind of hard to get apart. it pretty much fights you the entire way. despite the shitty graininess of this phone-pic, you can see the legs of the new LED's sticking thru. next is to solder them and trim them.


Here are the new LED's viewed from the top. they fit just like stock once the legs are properly bent.


Here are the little shits i had to unsolder. they are really in there and dont wanna come out. as you can see, they got a little bent out of shape as i had to pry them out while holding the iron on the pads.


Here is that thing i said....


This is where i do that thing that i mentioned earlier...


This is me doing that other thing with the one thing i said...


Here they all are, lit up. as you can see, the Red LED is dead since i shorted it out w/ the 12v that im using here to feed the Illumination circuit to test the board. Also, there are TWO led's that illuminate the Auto Fan function button but the Left one is not lit because it depends on the Red (temp up) LED being in series. since i removed the Red LED, the Split-level vent icon on the AUTO button is not complete lit.


This is the CC face w/ the LED board inserted inside to give you an idea of the light distribution. this is w/ the brightness sensativty on my phone at 0 of 10. you can see how some of the buttons are slightly discolored from age and wear.


Here is the same view but this time, the light sensativity on my phone is at 5 of 10, what most of my pics are taken at. it doesnt have that much glare in real life, i think its the shitty optics on my phone, lol.
 
#9 ·
lol brent, thats not my shit and its not my house. all of my stuff is in my closet. thats either my roommates gramma's stuff or the other roommates stuff.

if you guys have any questions about how you can complete this conversion, just PM me. im sure i can help you out, and such.
 
#11 ·
i didnt do that on mine. another guy i know did that. you need to get in Newark.com or something and find a 14 segment (i think?) display. you can either solder the new display directly into the board or solder in a socket and the display will plug into the socket. changing the display is Much much harder than just these LED's because there are 16 pins that you have to unsolder All at once while simultaneously pulling up on the stock display.
 
#13 ·
lol... thanks christoph. i was wondering when youd chime in. thats your CC unit that the other guy posted, isnt it?

i wanted to get the Wick from radioshack but its such a drive and gas isnt cheap, and neither my truck or my car has AC... and i live on a shitty road. does the wick draw off ALL the solder that holds the legs in and allow the component to just slide right out or does it ever leave a thin layer? i guess im just wondering if its 100% effective...
 
#17 · (Edited)
If you hold the iron with the wick over the solder connection it will eventually remove all of the solder leaving just a sweat joint in the connection. If used correctly the wick can be very useful in removing unwanted/unecessary solder in a connection. Be careful, wick has a tendency to get very hot and can burn your fingers pretty bad if not handled correctly.

You might also want to get yourself some flux as well to aid in a nice clean, strong connnection. What type solder are you using and what temperature iron are you using. Good luck! Nice write up by the way...

Khris
 
#14 ·
CRE - How much to get one done by you if that work is yours? I love how that looks. Or do you have anything special that you did aside from what flubyux2 posted to make it look like that?
 
#20 ·
thanks for the kind words guys! this is the first time ive ever done this much work in a single sitting on a PCB. ive changed resistors in tach's and such, but thats about it.

i can imagine the wick would conduct heat, now that you mention it. i really DO need a fresh tip. mine has ALOT of miles on it.

My iron is a 40watt Radio shack unit. the solder is a "large" 8oz. spool of 0.032" dia rosin core solder. it flows nicely. i forget the melting temp, i want to say its like 320*F, so not too high but not too low. i cant remember what percentage silver/tin/lead it is. i bought this stuff because it melts really well and flows nicely when im trying to do 240 individual wire connections on harnesses, lol. the thinner diameter really helps out when it comes to trying to solder larger guage wires, like 12awg and thicker. the larger dia solder tended to suck out more heat before melting and flowing into the wires. this stuff makes life really easy.

Brendan, always taking cheap shots eh? ;) besides, you didnt complain last time i came to see you
 
#23 · (Edited)
there should be no locking clips on the final board.

when you pull the black half away from the white case, youll see the intermediate board that has the actual button actuators. there are Seven phillips screws holding that in. remove the screws, and then GENTLY pry the board up around the edges. the Board itself snaps onto the white plastic clips that connect the Front buttons to this board. this is what i mean by "it fights you the whole way". you have to be ginger here so as not to chip, gouge or otherwise damage this board trying to un-snap it from the white clips.

once you succesfully get the intermediate board off, youll see the board you need to work on. this one is held in by all those white clips and Four phillips screws. once you get the clips and screws out, the board will pull right out.
 
#24 ·
Here are final pics of the CC installed in my car. One in the day light/twilight w/ the dash lights on... the other is obviously a night shot. the LED's are noticably brighter than my radio or guage cluster lights but its so White and clean... I heart it. it makes me want to do my guage cluster in this whiteness!





Sorry for the glare in the night shot... its just my cell phone camera.
 
#25 ·
Looks awesome.Off topic a little bit is the wiring different between the 89+ CC unit and an 88 cc. I like the 89+ much better.
 
#26 ·
no, they plug and play. back in the day, i let a friend use the CC out of my 91 in his 87 and i put his in mine.
 
#27 ·
cool.maybe I'll get to check them out at a spring hill meet one of these days.
 
#28 ·
yea im sure i can bring my car out if you plan to attend one of the meets.
 
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