This got barried in the 03-06 section so I brought it out here. I hope that is ok. Their is not one in here.
I have been wanting to do this for a while now and finally got around to it. Thanks to Jotaro for the idea and pics. After looking into this mod I still had a lot of questions because the information about it is spread around. So here is a how-to broken all the way down, enjoy.
********************************************************* **Caution**If you have not soldered or D-Soldered anything before then you might want to practice on some old electronic circuit boards to get the hang of it. Read the how to solder and desolder from this site to learn the proper way. http://www.geocities.com/mistertippy/howto/index.html **********************************************
What you need: -Philips Screw Driver -Needle Nose Pliers (smaller ones) -Soldering & D-Sordering iron(You want a soldering iron with low watts, mine was 15w. Higher watts may damage the board) You can buy soldering irons at Radio Shack -Beer Can filled 1-4 way with water(This is to put the hot solder in that you take off of the board) -SMD LEDs (Best place to get them is http://www.oznium.com/plcc-2 The LEDs are plenty bright, I ordered them Sunday and got them Wednesday)
Total Time 1-2 hours that is with the removing of the cluster from the bike.
2. Remove the 4 screws on the circuit board (recommend unscrewing ¾ of the way and then using your hand to do the rest. This lowers the risk of you slipping when the screw comes out and hitting the board.)
back in this write up you said to just put colored gels in to change the tack color . i just did my cluster all white i assumed the tach would show up white even though the surface of it was a slight red . well to my suprise when i put it back together it is red . my question is how to get the needle to show up white ?? do you have to strip what paint it on the top of the needle off ?? any help would be appreciated .
Kordo. I used the link to oznium in the first post.
You'll need 13 LEDs and 2 more if you are doing the blinkers.
Order more for when you cook em.
Oznium were great to deal with and like 4 or 5 days to ship here!
*THIS WILL ONLY WORK IF YOU CHANGE ALL THE LEDS UNDER IT TO WHITE* The method i have used in the past is to scrap the orange/red paint off the back of the needle and paint it the color you want. I love white needles so i use the grey metalic sharpie to color the same area that the original color was. remember if you paint/color the entire needle it will not glow. The same concept works if you are trying to get a blue needle with white gauges, you would just paint the needle blue. Be sure not to paint the Whole needle, just the same area that paint was removed.
FML, i went in to change one of the LED's and now two of them dont work. WTF, heres a pic. What could of gone wrong? And shouldnt the fuel guage be working with it plugged in?
It's hard to tell in the blurry picture, but you may even have a solder bridge shorting something out. The one LED is slightly turing on while the other isn't at all. Check both but look closely at the one that isn't even turning on.
i did it again without doing anything to the tach needle, same colors as last one but white behind the tach this time and i can definitely see the red on the needle. i think maybe it doesn't show up on the other picture because it was completely pitch black when i took the picture, no ambient light or anything.
sadly this time i got a little dark spot around 7k on the tach, didn't notice it until i had everything back together... must have gotten an led not quite flat, dunno if it bothers me enough to take it all apart again or not.
Most likely you missed the LED, i did this on mine, went back and fixed it, you will notice this on my first picture i posted of just my circuit board, its shinging amber.
Also, i used a qtip and varsol and just wiped the paint away from the bottom of the needle.
thought i'd throw up a pic of the new colors, i left the needle red, just doesn't show up very red in the picture. i like the way it looks with it red, so don't plan on changing it... the white turn signals are maybe a little brighter than i expected, but at least i won't be riding down the road with my turn signals on (as much as usual... heh)
also, around the needle it looks kind of blue in the picture, but it is actually faint white. meh, what d'you expect from a cell phone camera.
I haven't taken mine apart but I assume it is a stepper motor. The way you are supposed to remove a needle from a stepper motor is to rotate the needle counterclockwise on the spindle and gently pull it off. If you just yank the needle straight off you can potentially damage the stepper motor.
be careful when doing this mod if u choose to desolder the back of the needle and remove it that way. the circular metal part surrounding the hole for the pins are very flimsy and in my case broke off. ur tach needle won't work the best with this problem. still currently figuring out a fix for it!
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