...Hello Blue!
That picture is brighter than the actual dash. The camera over exposed the picture to lighten up the rest of the picture.
Do not use this how to if you are doing this for profit. This is a copyrighted article and is intended for private DIY use. All pictures and descriptions are the sole property of me.
So I finally got in the LEDs for my dash and started installing them. I have done some electrical circuit board soldering when I was in middle school, but that was about it as far as experience on circuit boards goes. I bought a new Weller 12 watt pencil soldering iron and went to work.
The LEDs were ordered from
» LED Light Bulbs, LED Lamps and they arrived in under a week in a little foam envelope. For some reason I was expecting a box after spending almost $100 on LEDs. You can order the surface mount and 3mm LEDs from
Garage 1217 or from
Oznium for much cheaper. But I haven't found the axial LEDs from a cheaper source yet.
For the SR5 with the tow package and not doing the radio, here is your list of LEDs needed:
These are all for the Blue LEDs, they have other colors available.
37 - SLT-773B (aka PLCC-2) (order extras! You will probably need them)
The next ones are for the switches. Minimum order is 15 and that is more than enough. You will have at least 5 extra of each.
15 - 300TB4GF
15 - R2033TB
You can order 31 of the SLT-773B if you want to leave the passenger seatbelt lights as amber. I didn't have enough (someone gave me the wrong number to order), so I left mine amber. Also be sure to order a few extra just in case you cook a couple of LEDs while installing.
Want to see the size of the LEDs you are replacing? These are the dash and A/C control ones.
Those same ones are on the left and these are the smaller 2 LEDs that have to be replaced as well:
You need a soldering iron (pencil type) that is a low wattage (under 20 watts!!) and has a fine pointed tip. The higher the wattage, the faster the solder will melt, but also the faster you cook the LEDs. 15 watts is plenty for this and most electrical mods, I recommend a 10 watt for circuit boards. I used a 12 Watt Weller and it works fine for most all my mods. A little flux core solder is nice to have as well. There will be solder left on the board from the old LEDs, but a tiny bit extra now and then was needed for a couple of LEDs.
You will also need a pair of small tweezers. Some tiny needle nose pliers will work as well. I used a set of bent hemostats like you might use when fishing.
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NOTE: All those lights are diodes. Diodes are designed to pass electricity in one direction only. So you have to put the LEDs on in a certain direction or they are not going to work. And when the LEDs are in series, like around the RPM gauge or the speedometer, then if one LED is backwards, then all three LEDs will not work.
There should be a mark on the LED to show which side is the negative side. On the dash and A/C LEDs, look for a corner that has a chunk taken out of it. Now look at the circuit board and you will see a symbol that looks like an arrow pointing at the top of a "T". The arrow points toward the end that the notched corner should be on.
On the medium side LEDs, there are two leads. The shorter lead is the negative side. That side is also flat if you look closely. Look at the way the old ones are positioned before you replace them.
On the tiny LEDs, there is a black stripe on the negative lead. That's the only way to tell which way those go. If you look at the orange LEDs on the buttons, you will see a tiny red or maybe gold line on one end. That is the negative end.
I took the leads and bent them down, and then cut them really short. Be sure to remember which end is the negative end before you cut the leads. I made a black dot with a sharpie on the side of the LED. When they are soldered onto the button circuit board, the plastic is up off the board. Makes it a little easier to solder in the tiny space. You can kinda see what I am talking about in this picture:
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y10...02/Dash011.jpg
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The next step is to get the A/C control and the dash out. The A/C control is fairly easy to do. Pull out on the dash above the steering wheel starting in the center and work your way to the right. Then pull out the cigarette lighter tray below the A/C controls. Then the A/C controls will pop right out. Just unplug everything and you have that one ready to take inside.
Now comes the dash gauges. Pull the rest of the dash above the steering wheel out and unplug everything. It's one long wiring harness that runs all the way around the panel you are pulling out. Then unhook the harness from the panel until it's free. Turn the steering wheel to the right and remove the hidden screw behind the wheel and then turn to the left and do the same thing. Then you pop out the upper piece of the steering column. It will be attached to the dash piece by a piece of vinyl. It was easier to do it this way than ruin the vinyl piece. Then remove the 4 hex nuts holding the cluster, unplug the single plug and clip in the back, and the whole cluster comes right out.
I did the A/C control since I figured that would be easier (and cheaper) to replace if I messed up.
Turn it over and you see this:
Remove all the screws (4 Phillips Head) and remove the cover.
Release the side tabs and you get this:
Remove the 4 screws and you can remove the circuit board:
See all the tiny white rectangles? Those are the LEDs we are replacing. Lucky for you, not all need to be replaced, just most of them. Anything with an "A" or an "N" will be an amber LED. The six clustered together in the top right are for the passenger seatbelt light. These are optional like I said before. I didn't realize I didn't have enough LEDs so I replaced them and then had to change them back to amber so I would have enough for the dash. The pictures I took are of me removing these optional LEDs so ignore the fact that I did those twice.
Put the tip of the iron on the solder on one side. Once the solder starts to melt, pull up on that side with the tweezers high enough to clear the melted solder. Don't pull too far or you will destroy the LED. Also don't heat it too long either. Then heat the other side and pull the LED off the board. You can smooth the left over solder a little so the new LED sits flat. Sorry if the pics came out a little blurry but they looked clear on the tiny camera screen.
And you keep doing that until all the LEDs have been removed (22 including seat belt 6). Remove all the LEDs before you put on the new ones or you might get them mixed up. They are very similar in color. Then you put on the new LEDs. Lay them flat on the board, heat up the solder on both sides while holding it with the tweezers, and you are done.
Easy right? The dash seems a little bit harder when you look at it, but it's really not any harder.
This is the dash after the clear cover is removed:
You want to mark exactly where the gauges point to so that you can put them back exactly the same later. Take some tape and use a marker to note where the needle points to when the needle is turned all the way to the left. I cut little arrows out of painters tape.
Then remove the other cover part. This cold be done before marking the needles.
You need to pull the needles now. This part was a little nerve racking at first. But trust me, they are hard to pull out so just grab a hold and pull hard straight out. Use a flat head to coerce them out if needed, just don't mark the gauges.
Next remove the guage numbers and pull the LCD screens out gently.
Someone had asked about the back of the gauge numbers so here it is:
The rest should be pretty straight forward like the A/C control. Take it apart until you get to the circuit board and replace all the LEDs with an "A" beside it. There will be 15 if you have the tow package (trans temp gauge) and 14 if you don't.
I'll post up finished pictures later. For now, I am finishing my dash buttons. Half of those are hard. The other have look near impossible. I haven't tried the impossible ones... yet. The impossible LEDs make those above look HUGE. Want to see them? See that tiny tiny tiny white rectangle to the right of the "28"? That is the LED that needs to be replaced.
Part 2: Switches
Some of the switches were a little tricky to do. Others were really tricky to do. I'll post up how to do a few of them. They start to repeat design so you can get the idea from the few that I will post. I don't have any pictures of how to take them apart, but they are all pretty obvious since they are almost all just held by tabs.
This is how the CM rear window switch and the cargo light and other toggle switches are done. The rectangles with the copper pieces are the sliders inside the switches. Don't let those drop and come apart cause there are springs inside and another spring and ball on the other side of the switch. On these, you have to cut out the old LEDs and solder in the new ones.
Here is the switches for the trip computer. I heated up the solder for the old LEDs and pulled out the amber ones. The I bent and cut the leads for the new LEDs and heated up the solder again to push the new LEDs into place. Pretty easy if you put it in a vise.
This is the 4x4 switch. I used the smallest LEDs I bought for this and the next set of switches. Different type of LED, but it will work. Just bend the leads down and cut them short to use them. You want to put the lead of the LED with the black strip on it on the side of the stock LED with the green stripe on it. Hard to see and keep straight after you cut the leads shorter. But if they are backwards, then you will know cause either the outer or inner (or both) ring of LEDs won't work later. Takes a fairly steady hand to do this. Couple of the LEDs broke while removing. No biggie since they were being replaced.
After:
Now we get to the really tiny LEDs. These were a pain to remove without breaking. There are 3 switches like this. 2 went well for me. The third had the LED cover come off and then I just had to burn the rest of the LED to remove what was left. These take a very steady hand to do. The vise I used came in very handy.
And that is pretty much it. After all those, slap it all back in the truck and make sure they all work. I am not wild about the light from the last set of switches. The axial LEDs are too close to the button so they show light hot spots in the translucent cover. Not bad, but still kinda noticeable if you look.
Anyway, here are the finished pictures I took this evening. Remember that these are a little over exposed so they aren't really that bright. Enjoy.
Interior lights on:
Interior lights off:
Special thanks to ccscorpion200 on TS for the LED sizes.
See
http://www.toyotatundraforum.com/ele...html#post29839 for the last part of the write-up.