My BLUE LED interior, EATC & cold cathode trunk!

[NoSlo]

Many hours of soldering etc. to make the interior the way it should have come.

EATC: Late model 'bubble' faceplate with 1999 circuit board, completely circuit traced and rewired (no simple ribbon cable swap!), surface mount capacitors added and diodes removed to replicate 1995 EATC signals and circuit. Each bulb replaced with 2 blue LEDs (10 total). LM317 voltage regulator set to 5.5 volts to power each pair of current-matched LEDs in series. One red LED for 'hot' button running off 5.5v supply with current limiting resistor. Fan speed wheel illumination is one LED on +12v illumination line with current limiting resistor. Vacuum Flourescent display filter plastic replaced with blue plastic.
Clock: VFD filter plastic replaced with blue plastic.
Fog Light switch: Switch and bezel modified to accomodate external wiring, blue LED soldered in with resistor (3.2v) for illumination, red LED soldered in with resistor (2.5v) for 'on' indicator.
Gauge Cluster: Indiglo gauges, inverter switch and dimmer mounted into redundant radio control location. Red backlight to illuminate needles red.
Window Buttons: Original yellow LEDs replaced with filed-to-fit blue LEDs in original circuit board, original current limiting resistors replaced with appropriate value for new LED current draw.
Headlight switch & defrost switch: not converted yet, saving the easiest for last.

Trunk: License plate illumination shaved and replaced with white cold-cathode illumination running off original circuit. Trunk lid inside has red/orange cold cathode tube for safety/hazard illumination and bling-bling when trunk is open. Dynamat on trunk lid can be seen in picture.

 

[SHOZ123]

Looks great. I wish I could do something with the GEN 3 football lighting in a blue led way.

 

[SASHO91]

looks really good!!!

 

[SolidState]

now that is impressive....

 

[NoSlo]

Some details of EATC modification

Some pictures of the progress of the EATC modification to make the thread load slower: (Oct 2008 - added some pics back, my web hosting deleted them)


Early test, powered by voltage regulator through unit's illumination line directly.


Some of the capacitors added to the board (they were on the main circuit board on the 1999, and on the face board on the 1993 unit, so they had to be moved here.) They are 'piggybacked' on.


Two LEDs per bulb location. These are 3mm miniature LEDs.


Testing the EATC with faceplate on the bench (note blue lens cover - is actually two layers of blue cd case!)

 

[shoteen95]

Beautiful

It's the little things like this that can change the whole character of an interior.

 

[ohfosho]

that is so beautifull, how long do you think that i took altogether? and have you taken a school course for electronics?

 

[MYSHO1]

Thats sick!

 

[ohioshodude]

can i ask what the purpose was to all the rewiring? i'm not following, sorry. looks good! now all i need is for someone to reprogram the processor on these things to say SHO instead of OFF and have the outside temp work like it does in newer cars, as in it stays on untill turned off or another button is pushed.

 

[MYSHO1]

can i ask what the purpose was to all the rewiring? i'm not following, sorry. looks good! now all i need is for someone to reprogram the processor on these things to say SHO instead of OFF and have the outside temp work like it does in newer cars, as in it stays on untill turned off or another button is pushed.

That can be done...

 

[focus'N'SHO]

dude that looks so HOTT!!! Very good job. I wish I had that sort of patience.

 

[ohioshodude]

wana fill in the shodude? lol i've been working on the temp button but the off conversion would take some knowledge to workout. you'd have to interface with the unit and change to programing. little over my head at the moment.

 

[ManySHOs]

Looks good. SHO92 (Bill Murray) replaced the amber LED's in the door switches with green ones because he converted his 93 to Gen1 green interior lighting. It looks really good. I followed suit and replaced the door switch LED's with blue LED's. I would like to replace some of the other stuff but haven't had much time with other projects going on. I am replacing my Autometer Ultralites with Autometer Cobalts which are illuminated by blue LED's at night with red pointers. They look awesome (I painted the chrome bezel black to cut down on reflection and glare though). They would prob look good in your car too but I sometimes regret spending that much cash on these gauges. Oh well.

I am planning on converting a few more EATC's to the newer style face. I might add LED's like you did. Looks good.

Ian

 

[SHO92]

The conversion looks very good! I might go an re-do some of my conversion after seeing this. I changed out the light filters on the headlight switch and defroster, but I may go and replace the bulbs with LEDs now!

My favorite part of my conversion is that the defroster switch now has a green LED when it's on instead of that ugly orange one. The window switches are number 2.

 

[jelloslug]

That looks nice. I have been considering blue LEDs with white VF displays for the radio, EATC, clock, and digital dash.

 

[SHO92]

Jello, aren't the displays white already? I thought the color of the display only came from the plastic filters.

 

[DVJ38]

Congradulations on a job well done! Seriously, that is some nice work. I'm working on a blue interior, but far from done, just like the rest of my car... Good idea with the blue CD case. Once again you people make me jealous.

 

[NoSlo]

rewiring

can i ask what the purpose was to all the rewiring? i'm not following, sorry. looks good! now all i need is for someone to reprogram the processor on these things to say SHO instead of OFF and have the outside temp work like it does in newer cars, as in it stays on untill turned off or another button is pushed.

The rewiring was necessary because the 1999 Expedition display board that I used for the conversion has completely different ribbon cable wiring than the Taurus or Continental EATCs. Not a single pin in the ribbon cable is the same, and in fact there are two less wires, because two of the keyboard matrix buttons run over the same wires in the ribbon as the signal wires for the display. I didn't anticipate this when I bought the unit, but I made it work. One nice thing is that whereas bulbs on the 1996-1997 EATCs are still socketed with holes on the display board, the 1999 board had the bulbs soldered directly onto the surface of the board (making it near impossible for the average user to replace bulbs of course, but making it easier for me to solder the LEDs on.)


Here's a picture of the fog lamp conversion. what you see outside is the current-limiting resistors for the LEDs, wrapped in heat shrink tubing. I melted channels for the resistors into the side of the switch, but still had to shave a bit of the bezel to get the switch to fit back into the dash.

 

[NoSlo]

Jello, aren't the displays white already? I thought the color of the display only came from the plastic filters.

The displays are hella bright without some kind of filter. To be 'white' they would need a smoked filter or dark lens on them to get them to an appropriate brightness. Alternately, one could alter the drive voltage for the VFD anode drive by putting a resistor inline (maybe 2-5 ohms?)

 

[jelloslug]

Jello, aren't the displays white already? I thought the color of the display only came from the plastic filters.

Nope, the natural color for VF displays is a teal-blueish color. You have to use a rose colored filter to get white out of the blueish display