dash lights

[RootBreaker]

Ok so I know that people have done the paint and led tricks to get brighter dash lights...

anyway I was at the junkyard this morning... looking for a part for my camaro...
well I was in a 1994 and saw the gauge cluster on the floor... turned it over and it has PC 161 bulbs...
think they are brighter? They appear to be the same style as ours... wont know until a while before I pop my dash out to see if they fit.. they are round and look to be similar...

anyhow I figured id post to see if anyone else has tried the pc 161's before...

 

[readymix]

These are a T3-1/4 Wedge Base bulb, which is about 0.4" (10.3mm) in diameter and 0.81" (20.6mm) in overall length. There are several bulbs which meet this specification, and as such are interchangeable:


Trade No. Design Volts Watts Amps Avg. CP Life
161 14.0 2.66 0.19 1 4000
158 14.0 3.36 0.24 2 3000
194 14.0 3.78 0.27 2 2500
192 14.0 4.62 0.33 3 2000
168 14.0 4.90 0.35 3 1500

 

[dremu]

These are a T3-1/4 Wedge Base bulb, which is about 0.4" (10.3mm) in diameter and 0.81" (20.6mm) in overall length. There are several bulbs which meet this specification, and as such are interchangeable:


Trade No. Design Volts Watts Amps Avg. CP Life
161 14.0 2.66 0.19 1 4000
158 14.0 3.36 0.24 2 3000
194 14.0 3.78 0.27 2 2500
192 14.0 4.62 0.33 3 2000
168 14.0 4.90 0.35 3 1500

One thing to note is the average life -- as the power input goes up, the life shoots down QUICKLY. The #192, for instance, takes only 6% less power than the #168, and yet lasts 25% longer. Given the hassle of removing the dash, or wrestling your arm up behind the cluster to replace the bulbs ... I like the 25% longer life span a lot.

Also notice I say power input, which is not the same as light output. Though I've not taken mine down to do anything with them in forever -- I hate dash cluster, old brittle plastic and too many fasteners -- I think your best bet would be a medium-bright bulb with a reasonable life coupled with increasing the reflectivity of its surroundings.

The silver paint trick sounds REALLY good, and is easy; a bright gloss white might work as well. I'd do the back of the metal piece in front of the bulbs as well as the inside of the plastic cluster proper.

Something that just came to mind is that the supply current to those bulbs has to go through the factory wiring and then through the tiiiiny PCB on the back. Think of all the work we go through to get a REAL 12V to the headlights... it's prolly worth rewiring the backlighting as well, 'cuz the factory setup is dang dim, I find. (It may just be that I'm getting old =))

I know each bulb only pulls 1/3 of an amp, but there's what, a dozen or so, that's maybe 3, 4A altogether. I'm considering replacing the sockets with a pigtail type and running, say, #20 wire to each, and then direct to the fusebox, bypassing the PCB and the harness. I don't think a relay setup is required, but would be easy enough to do should you wish.

It never ends; I see why Ryoken has his truck in pieces and is doing the "Remove radiator cap and replace everything else" thing ... except, of course, once you replace the radiator and water pump, you put on a new radiator cap as well

-- A

 

[ryoken]

yup, it's the "while I'm there" thing...

And I'm very, very bad about it... I do a shackle flip, I'm gonna strip, prime and paint the surrounding area... might as well run the best hardware while your there too... yada, yada...

Not that the backing nut/bars with Kerts flip aren't sufficient, but I've actually considered whacking out a full 3/8's plate for the backside...

I also said, screw it, buying a bender and doing bumpers now... Doing a custom center utilizing some custom B-52's from Kert...

f*ck, I just blasted, shaved and smoothed my axles, I must be a kook!!!!! I drove the damn thing around for 4 yrs, now I'm gonna BUILD it... I figure a year start to finish...

It's all coin.... I've spent $5500 since X-mas, and by the end of this year, I'll have put another 7 or 8 into it....

and to end the hijack, I'm no help on the bulbs RB....

 

[cabledawg]

Something that just came to mind is that the supply current to those bulbs has to go through the factory wiring and then through the tiiiiny PCB on the back. Think of all the work we go through to get a REAL 12V to the headlights... it's prolly worth rewiring the backlighting as well, 'cuz the factory setup is dang dim, I find. (It may just be that I'm getting old =))

I know each bulb only pulls 1/3 of an amp, but there's what, a dozen or so, that's maybe 3, 4A altogether. I'm considering replacing the sockets with a pigtail type and running, say, #20 wire to each, and then direct to the fusebox, bypassing the PCB and the harness. I don't think a relay setup is required, but would be easy enough to do should you wish.


-- A

Sounds like an awesome idea! I might start with mine (since the dash is somewhat stripped anyways) and see how it works, then move on to my wifes Burb. LEDs would be sweet too, but my electronics engineering is a bit rusty and I dont think I could easily put something together.

 

[dremu]

Sounds like an awesome idea! I might start with mine (since the dash is somewhat stripped anyways) and see how it works, then move on to my wifes Burb. LEDs would be sweet too, but my electronics engineering is a bit rusty and I dont think I could easily put something together.

Ah, LED's aren't all they're cracked up to be. The only way they're really bright is with a nice formed lens; the silicon itself doesn't put out squat for light. The problem with the formed lens is they're highly directional; sure, it's brighter, but it's focussed, like a narrow beam flashlight. Which is not so much what you want for area lighting like the instrument cluster.

You can get lots of LED's these days with the resistor(s) built-in for 12V operation, so as long as you can keep the polarity they're hard to get wrong (and of course, being diodes, hooking them up backwards doesn't hurt 'em, you just don't get any light =))

Alternately, you can get the bare LED's at Radio Shack or a real electronics place and run resistors based on the voltage drop and some subset of the maximum current listed on their paperwork ... but it's a hassle, and while it'd be nice to have dash lights that last forever, I'll put up with replacing them every few years to get a nice, wide area brightness.

The big deal is the blue LED's. I remember the Good Ole Days when blue LED's didn't exist, and when they first came out at retail they were ten bucks a pop (compare to ~20-30c for a T1 3/4 size ) Even now the silicon carbide or whatever chemistry makes the blue just isn't as bright as the red and green (this may be amplified by the eye seeing some wavelengths as brighter than others -- my EE and physics are rusty, too =))

Anyway, the white ones are just three LEDs on the same substrate, one red, one green, one blue, and brightness-matched by dimming the red and green, so the damn things just aren't real bright. You've also got heat issues 'cuz you're blowing so much energy into resistance to brightness match ... it is, as the engineering types say, sub-optimal.

Unless you can find LED's in the same form factor as the bulbs, it would be just as much work to put in other (larger/easier to wire) bulbs as it would to put in the LED's, and then you're not getting as much light and spending more money.

Short answer: stay with bulbs. Cheap, bright, simple, well-proven.

-- A

 

[RootBreaker]

so now that I have a history on lights!!!!

do you think the 161's are better than what I have?
I only paid $1 for them....

 

[readymix]

Nope. The 161 will be dimmer than the 194.
The brightest off the shelf lights you can get are the 168's. Many people have sad that the additional watts (read heat) will damage the PCB over time, but I have been running them for well over 2 years with no problems.
I am sure that over a significant amount of time they will cause damage of some sorts, but I would also bet that your current 194's have already done the same to the plastic on at least one socket.

 

[Dafey]

Subscribed