The car is an 02 accord. I want to get access to the back of the guage faceplate to install some LEDs. I have the cluster taken apart with the circuit board in the back and faceplate/needles in the front. I tried pulling off the needles, but they are stuck on pretty good. It felt as if something was going to break, so I gave up. Do I just pull on the needles until they come off, or is there some special way to get them off? I'm assuming that once the needles are removed, the rest will come apart. Any ideas?

 

once you have the clustyer out all you have to do is remove the bulbs from the back. YOu do not need to take the cluster apart

 

Yes I do need to take it apart. I already switched out the bulbs for LEDs, but the LEDs are directional,and they don't light up the cluster as bright as the bulbs did. So my plan was to take the cluster apart and place several LEDs behind each gauge to get more light. And like I said, I'm having trouble getting behind the faceplate.

 

What kind of LED's are you using (Besides directional) and do you have them on a resistor?

 

I strongly caution you not to remove the needles.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by notoriousB &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I strongly caution you not to remove the needles. </TD></TR></TABLE>

Ditto. Remove the needles and you risk having to buy a whole new cluster. At the very least, your gauges will be off, and you may never know by how much.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by philadd &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Ditto. Remove the needles and you risk having to buy a whole new cluster. At the very least, your gauges will be off, and you may never know by how much.</TD></TR></TABLE>
Your both right.
It took me hours of T&E to get my speedo and tach right after I had to rip the cluster open in my civic. What I ended up having to do was hook up the HDS and look at the VSS in the data list, accelerate to 20MPH (on the lift) and put my needle at the same speed. Then repeat the process with the tach
So unless you have that kind of equipment I would advise against it as well.

 

I'm using blue 5mm 7k mcd LEDs, and yes, they are on a resistor, so no need to worry about that. The viewing angle of the LEDs is 15 deg. while that of the bulb is 360 deg. The LEDs only shine straight onto the faceplate and not to the sides like the original bulbs did. And getting several LEDs into the bulb hole and aligning them to shine sideways is not the easiest solution. If that's the only solution, then that's what I'll do. Anybody have any other ideas to make this work?

 

What Ohm resistors do you have on it? You may be able to go to a smaller resistance.

 

I got 510s, and that maxes out the LEDs at 20 mA. Can't go brighter than that without worrying about frying the LEDs.

I upgraded all the interior lights with LEDs, and now the cluster is way too dim when compared to the rest.

 

There's wide-angle LED's out there. I've never looked for them, so I don't know where to find them, but I've seen them.

 

I have a bunch of the narrow angle ones, so I need to make it work with those.