02 Kia Optima Interior LED color change

[SneakyCyber]

I started with the dash
Dash Before




Dash AFter





It turned out prety sick looking. Took about 2 hours because I solderd two leds backwards and had to figure out which ones were wrong.

Tips Learned: Leds can take alot of heat when there off. Draw a diagram of the polarity of the stock LED's incase you get one backwards. If you do get one backwards depending on where it is in the circuit one or more LED's wont light. Test the panel after a few LED's to make sure your getting good contact with the circuit board. With this particular instrument cluster the new LED's were too bright for the gearshift indicator background lighting so I omited those and changed the selected LED color now they only light depending on what gear your in but there not lit all the time. Use a damp sponge to keep your soldering iron clean. Keep your iron tip tinned before each soldering task. Repeat after me: Wipe, Tin, Solder... Wipe, Tin, Solder. Do this each time and you should have no problems. Have and assortment of small tools to handle the LED's I used a straight pick, A 90deg pick, a pair of tweezers and my favorite tool was a gerber clutch pair of pliers. You may also want to have a magnifying glass handy becuase these LED are TINY!

Will post more pics of the interior as I finish. The AC controlls are changed but need some tweeking of the led placement.

 

[SneakyCyber]

I am installing more LED's as my shipments come in These were from Kingbright Led's. I will be adding accent strips in my foot wells, accent Led's in all door handles. I have a few strobe lights in the grill of the car so far but will be upgrading to several more. More pics to come!

 

[SneakyCyber]

Here is what the AC control looks like when its apart This is the led that back lights the buttons, notice its flush with the circuit board this is important otherwise the center button in front of the LED will be too bright. Also I ran into a problem with the Vent selector buttons in that the center button was still too bright. I took some black electrical tape and covered some of the plastic refractor behind the button and that dimmed it enough to blend with the other buttons. This is a shot of the one of the LED's that back lights the knobs notice it sticks up a bit more. This is so it is closer to the refractive plastic and lights up the knob better. Before you take out the bulbs make sure to note which side of the whole is positive and negative so you can orientate the LED properly.

 

[SneakyCyber]

AC Guages before



And After

 

[sed6]

Let me be the first to say nice work! I did a similiar mod on the dash of my '06 Accord SE; I know what a challange it can be. Now on to lights in the window switches or door locks or...

 

[SneakyCyber]

Thanks I'm waiting on my next shipment of LED's to come from overseas. Hopefully I get them in a few weeks.