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Those with LED's in their dash.

y5mgisi

y5mgisi

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For those of you that have swapped to all LED'd in the dash. As i understand it they are not dimmable correct? That being the case, now that you have had them for a while, do you find they are too bright? Or are they alright? Trying to decide if i should go this route or not.
 
They do not dim.

Damn near to bright but guess I have gotten used to it.
 
OK, I do not have LEDs in my dash, unless they are factory.
Don't know for sure.
But I have worked with an LED or two or a thousand, and they can be dimmed.

Not as well as an incandescent, but they will dim some with lower current.

The best way, of course, is by running them on AC and varying the duty cycle. Oops, let me backup.
NOT AC, pulsing DC.
Remember, turkey season is here, so I'm fuzzy.

Surely some of you have some of the new LED flashlights with dimming functions. So that would tend to prove my point.
Those are LEDs and they do dim.
I have not gotten into the whole thing, but they sell LED driver modules that support dimming. Not sure which one would work for this app, but it should not be too hard to figure out.

Post back tomorrow after I wake up, and I'll do some digging.

But, in the meantime, you might try hooking a variable resistor up to the power source to the LEDs you have and see what happens.
 
LED's can be dimmed, you have to use a resistor to change voltage.
 
Why dont you just install a dial in between
the led and power source, it would act a lot like your factory dimmer, just restricts power to led so less out put...
 
Kert I must disagree. Autometer makes a LED Dimmer. Along with Marshall Instruments makes one as well. It's very easy to install. Kert flip through your autometer catalog. It is part number 9114. it can dim up to 6 gauges. I use it on my ultra-lite II's and my cobalts.
 
Subscribed. I also have never seen a factory dashboard that was to bright, but if the technology is efficient and inexpensive then mine will go led too.
 
Since most folks here seem to use Superbrightleds as their source, you might want to know they also sell dimmers that use pulsing DC like I mentioned.

Here is a link to the dimmer page.
http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-bin/store/index.cgi?action=DispPage&Page2Disp=/specs/dimmer.htm

The model LDR-2A has an option for a wired remote. But its the most expensive. I'm sure any of them with a knob could be converted if you wanted to take them apart.

Model LDRF-8A has a wireless remote. Don't know why you would want that unless you wanted to dim your dash lights from outside the truck.

It is cheaper than the other one, I suppose you could mount the control somewhere to do the dimming.
 
Isn't the reostat that is in the headlight switch a "resistor"?
 
Truthfully, i've been more than happy with my modified dash lights, and don't feel the brightness / light color of LED's looks at home in our older trucks.

Search the headlight bezel paint mod, it may be in my thread.

Proper paint, swapping over to the brighter bulbs, and making sure everything works provides more than enough light.

I normally run mine just above OFF, no where near the brightest setting, and can see everything like it should have come from the factory.
 
Thats kinda what im thinking Darren. I dont really need mine to be way brighter. Just bright enough. As it is now i think i have 3 bulbs out so i need to pull the dash all apart anyway and figured maybe the LED's would be worth a shot. But having to add resisters and stuff isnt what im after just to be able to run LED's. Are the 168's or 194's the brighter ones?
 
As other has stated the Superbrite LED’s can be dimmed with the factory headlight switch. Didn’t need to add any additional resistor. I was very surprised to find the actually dimmed with the factory switch after I installed them. I used Natural White Superbriteled.com WLED-NW5 in both my ’78 K10 and ’89 V2500 Suburban. They work great!

Here is a sucktastic picture of the ’78 K10 in the dark. I just need to put one of these bulbs in the tach now. You can kind of see the lighting difference between the incandescent bulb in the tach vs. the LED’s in the cluster

5427242482_a2e8f64641_z.jpg
 
Lol you sure do! Thanks man! I might just try the leds in one truck and the chrome paint and bright bulbs in another and see which I like better.
 
y5mgisi said:
Lol you sure do! Thanks man! I might just try the leds in one truck and the chrome paint and bright bulbs in another and see which I like better.
Click to expand...


Definitely do chrome paint in both.

Its super easy, and makes a HUGE diffeerence.

Read the threads out there on it though, only one works really well.
 
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