The LED THREAD for Exterior and Interior lighting

Zitat von Paul_M;52103

Nice job. The main one that annoys me is the ASC button, it's much duller than the others. I was going to try replacing the bulb/LED but couldn't work out how to open it without destroying the switch.

I just received my spare button... I tried to cut the tabs smaller and smaller until I could remove the printed circuit board (PCB), but that didn't work. The holes are too small to leave enough plastic to create new melted tabs. So I just cut 'em off. Here's what the internals look like:



Before opening the button I was afraid all force generated by pressing the button would come on the PCB inside the button and thus also on the plastic tabs. But that's not the case! The part of the button you press on is fixed in the top half of the enclosure. Even with the PCB out you cannot press it beyond a certain point. Underneath this part is a small rubber rod that presses the actual switch on the PCB. In other words, no matter how hard you press on the button, very little force will make it to the PCB. A few dabs of hot glue are probably enough to keep it seated. If you want to be certain, make a few spacers that sit between the PCB and blue button base. It will be even stronger than the original.

The button internals reveal not one but two filament bulbs. One is obviously to illuminate the ASC lettering and should be replaced with LEDs. The other one should illuminate the button when ASC is active, but as far as I know that feature is not enabled in the E31 (it's shown on the dash instead). So replacing the second bulb with a LED is not necessary.

Knowing what to expect I finally dared to open my own ASC button. I didn't waste my time by trying to recover the melted tabs. I just turned the tab heads with a pair of long nose pliers until they came of - a clean cut. I will fixate the PCB later on with a dab of hot glue and some spacers. The spacers must be exactly 8mm tall.

Apparantly my button is a different revision. Where the other ASC button had four melted plastic tabs, this one had six. Don't break off the two smaller tabs - they don't hold the PCB!



As you can see the inside is slightly different. This one has a plastic bulb holder and only one filament bulb - that might explain why the ASC light never comes on in an E31.

Mounting a pair of LEDs will be done in similar fashion as the EML button. I'll post a picture when ready.

Update: Apparantly the spare ASC button I got and opened first, is from an E32. It suddenly struck me the connector is different. A closer look also revealed a different part number... Sorry, bad research from my end. The one in this post is the true and correct E31 ASC button.

And here's the modified ASC button. Sorry for the bad picture (depth-of-field way too small). I hadn't noticed the camera's aperture was set wrong until I had the button completely assembled again. Dammit



I determined the optimal resistance to be 10k (10000 ohm). Note there's already a 130 ohm resistor in the button's base. I didn't bother taking that one out, but put the new 5k6 resistor in series with it.

The two black rectangles you can see on the picture above are the spacers that will be put between the two circuit boards and which will replaced the melted tabs. They are exactly 8mm (0.315") tall and around 15mm (0.6") wide. Thickness is 1mm (0.034"). Just put the bottom PCB (the actual switch) back into the button enclosure. Make sure it sits in correct position, then glue the spacers to the enclosure sides - one on each side - and put the button base back in place. Solid as a rock!

I can't post pictures from the buttons in action yet as I still have the center console out, but on my test bench they all look equally bright. Looks very nice

Zitat von revtor;45926

I also posted this at wuffer's board, but since other people are also contributing their HVAC illumination mods to this thread, I thought I'd share mine too. I haven't had the time yet to write and extensive article around it, but here are some teaser pictures with a word of explanation:



LED brightness adjustment - small and simple but very effective. I didn't want to mess with soldering different resistors or putting some filter over the LEDs to get matching brightness, so I opted to make it adjustable.




My lightbar replacement. Just like most I chose to get rid of the original lightbar. I didn't want to damage it - I always want to be able to get back to stock without too much effort - so I replaced it completely with LEDs shining directly in the roller wheels.




Close up of the LEDs. As you can see I opted for very small SMD LEDs. The SMD LEDs are quite dim (only 8mcd each), so I had to use 2 for each wheel. The combined 16mcd output may not seem very much to the overwhelming power of today's high efficiency LEDs which offer several thousands mcd. But the LEDs will be located inside the roller wheels shining towards the frontside, so the light distribution is very efficient. In other words, the LEDs don't have to be very bright. In fact, even this 16mcd had to be turned down a bit because it was too bright. The LEDs have a 170° viewing angle so the light distribution is very even.




The LEDs inside a roller wheel.




The LED lightbar and brightness control mounted inside the HVAC control unit. I used a hot glue gun to mount it the lightbar. I like thermoplast glues because they begin to fixate within minutes - no need to hold or clamp it for a long time. Also, the glue can be removed very easy once it has cooled down without leaving traces on the plastic.

The brightness control is mounted with a small screw in a previously unused mounting hole near the location of the original lightbulb.




The brightness control is easily accessible through the lamp bulb hole in the back of the unit.




And this is what it looks like at night. The color matches perfectly with the illumination of the buttons. There's no visible difference in color or brightness between the original buttons and the "updated" roller wheels. I think the mod worked out very well.

If you want to match the BMW orange, you must use LEDs with a wavelength of 605-610nm. Anything shorter or longer will be too yellow or too red. The LEDs I used are 610nm. I didn't want to use white LEDs (like most people do). The white light tends to be too pale compared to the rest of the illumination. You can of course apply a color filter (orange paint for example), but why not using correct color matched LEDs from the beginning? As you may have seen in my Becker/BMW Radio Navigation Indianapolis display mod II perfection is the only thing I'll settle for and I go quite far in that :).

The only drawback of these orange LEDs is the monochromatic light they produce. Monochromatic light doesn't color well when a color filter is applied. You can see that clearly in the picture above. The red marks left from 24°C are almost the same color as the rest and the blue marks right from 20°C are nearly invisible. This works better with white LEDs, but I actually like the fact that it's all orange now. The red and blue just didn't match the illumination.

I also took the time to replace the yellow and green LEDs in the buttons with BMW orange LEDs (not seen on the picture above). Now the HVAC illumination is completely BMW orange - I like it

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Hello revtor:

I find it very interesting to your document at the club in spain, we are several problems with the lights of the climate, I would like to put this document in the forum of e31.es, if you allow me put it, but would prefer to be on your that we published in our pages.

A greeting

Zitat von chusher;55138

I find it very interesting to your document at the club in spain, we are several problems with the lights of the climate, I would like to put this document in the forum of e31.es, if you allow me put it, but would prefer to be on your that we published in our pages.

Sure, no problem! You may post the article at your forum!

Here's a link to the full article: HVAC/IHKA controller roller wheel illumination mod (@Bimmerforums.com).

Zitat von revtor;55142

Sure, no problem! You may post the article at your forum!

Here's a link to the full article: HVAC/IHKA controller roller wheel illumination mod (@Bimmerforums.com).

Revtor thank you very much, right now I have hung in the forum of the Spanish Club page that you have given me.
Could make a visit to that forum because we are starting already and you know the beginnings are hard and your experience would help us.

http://www.e31.es/foro/index.php

Zitat von TallTony;44938

I then placed the 3 LEDs in the hole by each of the dials. Forgot to take pictures at this point, but I secured the LEDs with a dab of hot glue, and then wired them in parallel to the dash bulb source so they each receive the same amount of current.

Tony & Wayne on the photo above it shows the positive on the top part of the connection and the negative at the bottom is this right
Sorry to sound thick but I have the unit in front of me with the LED's mounted in position etc and only need to solder the connection together but the car is 100+miles away to check this out with a multimeter which is also at home
I just wanted to finish the unit tomorrow. Thanks fella's

You are correct, Lloyd. Here's another picture that shows the connections. The red wire is the positive lead, the black one the negative lead. The connections are made on the bottom side in this example. This way the leads and solder joints cannot be seen when the unit is assemled.



Or Martin's picture where he indicated + and - on the PCB:

Thanks Revtor

Is it all sorted now Lloyd?

Zitat von wayneblackwell1000;57628

Is it all sorted now Lloyd?

Yes mate, its done, now all I need to do is test it when I get back next week.

Right the HVAC unit is back in and lights up a dream. However the computer now does not work i.e. it does not light up at all not even the clock Any idea's friends I thought it might be a fuse number 31 in the boot Or am I looking in the wrong place? It still bong's with or without it connected?

Hi Tony, I've read your led mods with interest and wondered if you could point me in the right direction to replace the map lights ?

Cheers
Alex

Sidelights

Hi Tony, I followed your instructions for replacing the sidelights with led's, I got 36 led bulbs which work fine, but despite being white, have a blueish tinge unlike your super bright white ones. I get sidelight failure bong about every 3rd startup. Are yours the 45 led ones ? do you have an ebay link to them ?

Cheers, Alex

It's been 6 months since my last update in this thread and I still haven't made any progress on any field... I haven't put the center console in my car yet, but I finally took the time to make a picture of the center console buttons with modified illumination.

I think most of us have already noticed the illumination of the buttons on the center console isn't exactly coherent. If you check some of my previous posts in this thread you can see I modified the buttons to have a better matching illumination. Here's the result:



Perhaps the modified buttons (seat heating is as reference) are a slight tad too bright, but the picture with long exposure time exaggerates the difference. I didn't notice until seeing the picture. Most important is that all buttons now have exactly the same color and virtually the same brightness. Another minor annoyance fixed .

Thanks Tony, I bought the bulbs recommended by David8, superb ......but consistent 'bongs'......I'm using the resistor mod as per your bulbs....do I need different resistors with theses bulbs ?


Alex