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DIY: Change Color of Guage Cluster 07-08

9K views 40 replies 23 participants last post by  qteter 
#1 · (Edited)
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)

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)
Cont....



3. D-Solder the 4 Tac guage 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.

9. 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.


 
#7 · (Edited)
The amber pic is not mine, lol. Just wanted something to compare to. The only thing I bought were the LEDs (8$ with shipping) and the Gels (5$ with shipping). The total time from guage out of bike to new LEDs to guage back into bike was 1 1/2 hours
 
#12 ·
Dude -

We need to talk about choices in beer...:puke:

:icon_lol:
I am in my last semester of college, at least it is alcohal right? LOL

"Good work SeanO. I originally wanted to have the 13-17 rpm range to be red as it is redline zone but opted against it. Did you put the red LED there because it looks washed out pink. "-Randomwalk101


I did use the red LED:
If you look at the 7th picture at the MPH LCD screen you will see that the top left corner is clear. I put a peice of masking tape on it but will have to take it apart and just paint it black. The blue light from the MPH LCD comes out of that corner and bleeds the red a bit. It looks a little more purple in the photo then it actually is as well. Before it did not matter because the whole thing was Amber.
 
#14 ·
I like the green. Like I said if I am going to do all of this work I am going to make it many colors. Nobody can look at i now and think it was stock, lol. I smile when I look down at it now just because I think it is funny. I am going to try and get a better camera because those pics do not do it justice.
 
#17 ·
It is a SMD (Surface Mount Display) LED.

PLCC-2 (Plastic Leaded Chip Carrier)
Size: 3.5 x 2.8mm
Viewing Angle: 120 degrees
Current: 20 mA

I got mine from this website.
http://www.oznium.com/plcc-2
The LEDs are very bright; I can see the colors in the day time faintly. It took 3 days to ship from CA to MI. The specs for each LED are listed on the site as well.


Hope that this helps. :)
 
#19 ·
It is a SMD (Surface Mount Display) LED.

PLCC-2 (Plastic Leaded Chip Carrier)
Size: 3.5 x 2.8mm
Viewing Angle: 120 degrees
Current: 20 mA

I got mine from this website.
http://www.oznium.com/plcc-2
The LEDs are very bright; I can see the colors in the day time faintly. It took 3 days to ship from CA to MI. The specs for each LED are listed on the site as well.


Hope that this helps. :)
Thanks for that but I still have a question that according to thr page you referred, they are few different typ, lets say I want the red colour do I just solder it straight or do I need a resistor for it .....

Thank you
 
#20 ·
I used pink, green, blue, red and white and soldered all of them straight to the board. I have not had any problems with any of them. I have not heard of anyone else having any problems either. Some people got ones twice as bright as the page I referred you to off of egay and I do not think that they have had problems either.
 
#32 ·
I had the day off from work today so i decided to jump into the project. the instructions in this write up where GREAT! I dident run into any problems, the steps where very simple, this took me about half an hour to do ( after cluster was removed from bike )

thank you seano!

heres a pic of mine.
All red, white rpm.

 
#33 ·
i was just get'n my pix together to post for my 04 blue w/reverse i just finished, yours turned out nice, hope ya dont mind me post'n mine... (in 03-04) but then again it is a diff cluster, haha nice work bro
 
#34 · (Edited)
Just curious- i did this mod on my bike it worked great for about a month and then problems started to happen...

The MPH indicator would go straight to "0" while i was moving. Then it would come back to life like 2 min down the road. Then like a week of that it started to illuminate the FI light and the oil light for no reason at all. Then my gas gauge stopped registering the correct amount of gas. Then my temp reading was all over the place- immediately after starting the bike after sitting so its cold it would shoot up to 240 and start flashing and then back down to 110 and keep jumping around like that.

So like all electronics i started at the beginning

I troubleshooted all my grounds and found them all to be fine
I checked each sensor for the right voltage coming out of it- they all passed.
I then replaced my cluster with a buddy of mine and the problem went away.
I then bought a cluster and been using it for a year now and no problems.

So i know it was caused from the LED's replacement however what can i do to repair this issue? Anyone have any ideas- i would really like to put my old cluster back in.

Oh yeah i also bought my LED's from Oznium
 
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