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DIY: Change Color of Guage Cluster 07-08

104K views 183 replies 92 participants last post by  Noobstar 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
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.

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**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

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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.

To get your dash out for LED Mod go here http://www.600rr.net/vb/showthread.php?t=97411


The tools that I used:





What The LEDs looked like:




1. Take the 9 screws out of the back:

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.)


 
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#2 · (Edited by Moderator)
Cont...

3. D-Solder the 4 Tac gage leads from the back and straighten the 4 medal pins. Then pull up on the unit from the other side. I recommend this way because it gives you more room to work. I heard you can take the needle off from the other side but have not tried it.


4. Now straighten the 4 black tabs on the gas and MPH LCD displays. Be careful when removing because the black frame is not attached to the white housing. Do not forget about the LED circled in red.


5. Now D-Solder the LEDs that you want to replace. You can use any of the three main techniques that you want. I squeezed the LED with my needle nose pliers then slowly melted the solder on each side until the LED came off.


6. After you get all of the LEDs that you want to change off you can start to put the new ones on. Make sure you put the LEDs on the right way and use the right soldering technique so that there is a proper connection. **Make sure that the corner that is cut off on the LED is pointing toward the K on the circuit board.**


7. Cut out a round donut shape to place under the needle to turn it what color that you want it to be. I went to my local DJ store and got GELs that they use for the Par can lights. They gave me 18 colors for 5 bucks. If you would like a color PM me your Address and I will send you a square. Again I have every color. I used a light purple on mine.



8. Put everything back together and you are done. This is what mine looks like. I used a lot of colors because I figured if I was going to go through all of this work I want a rainbow. So I even made my turn signals pink, lol.

The Amber one is not mine.
 
#4 · (Edited)
beautiful mod, and (haven't look up the price of the LED's yet) but seemingly an inexpensive way to personalize and customize your bike to your liking. now as mentioned, find a gear indicator!!! haha i'm used to 5 gears, not 6, so when you hear me cruising by like a tard in 5th at 90mph, don't laugh too hard.

oh also...themz some purdy pink blinkers, bet you will always remember to turn em off now!
 
#6 ·
Awesome mod, definitely my next. How many LEDs do I need to order all together? I'm trying to count from your pics but it'd be nice to know for sure how many for each section of the dash.
 
#13 ·
I just did this mod to my girlfriends 05R6 gauges, did hers in all pink, doing mine this weekend in blue for lcds and white for rpm gauge with white blinkers..

Word of advice removing the old leds, put a small drip of solder on the end of the gun and apply it to each side of the old leds, i went around and added solder to all of them then went back and in 1.5 second increments heated up each side of the leds new solder until the led starts moving on its own then i just pushed it off the side of the gauges.

i used the Desolder gun with the squeeze thing and it worked perfect for cleaning off the area to put down new leds
 
#14 ·
and i must say that the cbr is 100000 times easier to do than on the R6's, i still have to fix the lcd on her R6 because you have to unsolder the entire thing and if any of the little pins get bent at all it screws up the lcd, so must be i have one or 2 slightly bent, cuz her lcd is all messed up now. and the leds i got off ebay suck ass, they aren't bright at all, the ones i got for my cbr i got from the site on this thread so hopefully when i finish them this weekend they will come out much better. At least her gauges were old with a ton of miles on them anyhow so they can easily be replaced for cheap if i can't fix them. i figured i'd use hers as the guinea pig instead of messing up my 250+ dollar gauge cluster, but honestly the cbr should be a piece of cake after doing hers.
 
#16 ·
well i thought it would go smoothly but it givin me a lil trouble, for some reason the 2 gas leds wont work and the 2 far speedo ones wont come on either, the rest are all light up when i plug in just the cluster part.

Did you guys test them by plugging in the cluster before you fully put it back together?

And i have no idea why but when i turn on my blinker to the right it doesn't come on and my headlight starts coming on and off along with all the led's in the gauges and i have no idea why but i really dont wanna fry the cluster or anything.

Any ideas?
 
#17 ·
well i got the blinkers figured out and the gas led's to work but the led closest to the gas led's i can't put on or the gas ones don't work. not sure what i'm doing wrong, or what might be going on with the 2 far ones for the speedo they wont come on no matter what i do. i messed with it for hours and got sick of it so gave up, maybe take it to an electrician if noone can give me any better ideas of things to try
 
#25 ·
these LEDs are super sensitive to heat!!!!!

I had the same kind of problem with mine. the leds are in series, power needs to go through both to work. if one is blown they wont work.
the 6 in the speedo are 3 groups ie
1 2 3
1 2 3

i checked with my DMM to see which one was blown using the diode setting.
 
#18 ·
be sure the LED is not put in backward. It is directional. Look at the cut edge and compare. Also, there is a possibility that you didn't solder it in good enough. It happened to me back then. I took that LED off and resolder it back in and it worked. I use a new LED though...may be that LED is just bad??
Another thing is make sure you ground yourself when doing anything electrical..especially with PCboards with all the chips and all...static electricity can zap it real easy if you're not careful. Good luck dude.
 
#20 ·
yeah i took them off and put them back on and still didn't work, even tried with new ones to. for some reason if i put that one single led in tho the gas ones dont work but as soon as i remove it they work fine, and its actually way out of the way of the rpm gauge so not sure what its for, i thought about just leaving it off. How would i ground myself, noone ever mentioned that so maybe thats part of my problem.
 
#21 ·
ground,just touch a large piece of metal object or the ground (not carpet..something conduct electricity) so you discipate all the static electricity so it won't burn your circuit board. Also, you might have used a too powerful (hot) solder iron that might have burn out something on the board?? not sure why cuz it's electronics and tons of things can go wrong.
 
#35 ·
The light intensity of an LED is actually specified at a certain current, not voltage. The higher the current flowing through an LED the higher the voltage drop across the LED. Since our bikes have 12V systems there are a number of LEDs in series as well a current limiting resistor and a transistor to turn them on.

Different color LEDs can have very different voltage drops. Generally, amber and red LEDs have the lowest voltage drop (often around 2V). The green, blue, and white LEDs usually have higher voltage drops (closer to 3-4V). So if the system voltage is 14V (when the bike is running) and there are 6 red LEDs in series with each dropping 2V, then you choose the value of the current limiting resistor so that you get the desired current through the string of LEDs. Having worked with similar LEDs before, I would assume that the stock amber LEDs are biased at about 25mA. Using LEDs with a higher voltage drop will require a smaller value resistor.

When I get around to changing these out in my gauges I'll trace out the circuit and share it with everyone. Unless of course someone has already done that and would like to post that info here?
 
#33 ·
hey, thanks a ton for this guide! :01_thumbu just did my 08 led color and polarization, much easier than i thought it would be. ended up going with all blue leds from oznium, i ordered twice as many as i needed just in case, planning to do white tach with blue gauges. started with the blue leds, made a mental note to not put any on the tach spots, and forgot to read the mental note. oh well, i don't mind the all blue one bit... :icon_lol:

 
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