Interior Dash Lights

[BIGRED_Z-71]

ok this kinda ties in with my colored needle post.

but i was driving my sisters vw passat (at Texas Motor Speedway)(at night)(at over 120mph!) i fell in love with it's red glowing dash lights... i mean these things were everywhere! so it got me thinking... what are the av's lights made out of... ?leds? colored bulbs...clear bulbs with colored plastic? i need to know... any ideas? ?i'm thinking about replacing them to red. ?

so what do you think?
how can it be done?
anybody else ever tried this? (or know how they are lit up?)
thank you for your help

btw, those turbo passats are fast!

~BIGRED

 

[jnspur]

BigRed
I don't know how it's done, but it is a very cool idea! I hope someone out there has some answers for you, because I would like to try it in blue!!

 

[Wiki]

I tried replacing my ashtray light with a blue one to test this theory. The bulb evidently was made to be on for short periods of time because the darn thing had all of the blue color burnt off of it. So now my bulb is clear again.

Seems to me you would have to use some special bulbs and not just the replacements you can buy at Advance Auto or Auto Zone. Maybe red LED's or something like that.

The blue bulb did not work for me. I also tried the same with the dome light and you can see if you leave that on too long it starts to show signs of color burn out as well.

 

[jnspur]

Wiki
I don't know what it is about the blue. I tried the blue dome too, and it faded really fast. I put blue in the door lights, and they are not fading as fast but are still fading. I also put red white and blue lights down my driveway (those photo sensor yard lights) And after about a month, I had red white and white. (After going thru a short light green stage)

 

[Jake]

The only thing close to this kind of mod was on a '86 Monte Carlo SS that I had. I took the dash apart and replaced all of the little clear bulbs with red ones. I didn't replace the A/C pannel lights but the effect worked. I'm not sure how long I had this setup before selling it, but I don't remember any fading. I got the lights from Autozone and it did look pretty sharp next to the stereo that had the same red color display.

 

[BIGRED_Z-71]

oh i'm not talking about the over head lights and stuff... no no the ones you see on the radio... ac panel... anything that glows teal or green at night (all the lettering and numbers)

~BIGRED

 

[atgr]

I guess to each his own, but when I was away on a project last April I had a Pontiac Crand Am rental car. All the guage and radio lights were red. I hated it. It drove me nuts at night.

 

[BIGRED_Z-71]

I got back there and looked... I was surprised to see that they are painted! yup the blue on the buttos is a clear/blue film that is painted on. so the only way to complete this mod is to get the knobs and buttons clear... paint them grey with the same logos and writing and then lay a red film over them. I'm going to test out this theory and see if it looks good and works.


~BIGRED

 

[Rahn]

when I used to work in the printing business, we had a red transparent tape, that would probably work for the red film, could possibly get it at an art store