[Essex8800]

Okay....i went for a ride in my friends Lexus es300 today and saw his gauges....(they're absolutely gorgeous) They have smooth movemnet and you cant see them unless you turn on the car....like the plastic is completly blacked out......If i pulled porkchop's led add to my cluster and added 2.5% tint on the clear cover i think i may be able to replicate this......whadya guys think....the only thing im worried about is the daytime veiw......porkchop your gauges look really bright do you think you can see them through tint during the day???

 

[Southpaw]

Light sources always look brighter when photographed due to the exposure time. I think you would have a hard time seeing them during the day, if at all.

 

[Porkchop]

compared to stock the led cluster was brighter, but was more deep color wise. i believe the plastic cover on that car was tinted but only allowed the numbers/gauges to shine right through. our covers arent close enough to the faces so it would be hard and awkward to make that work.

 

[Toombs]

What if you used the "mask" layer for the guages as the top layer? The whole cluster would just be black until you turn on the cluster lights, then the numbers would appear. Could be cool, maybe.

Mike

 

[scotthrbacek]

I tried experimenting with that idea a while ago. I used an EL sheet and had it goto full brightness whenever the ignition was on. Using a relay, I was able to have it automatically dim when the lights came on.

It was a real pain in the rear, but it did look cool. I made the faces appear all black when the car was off. All that could be seen was the needles. But without tinting the cover over the bezel, the effect was not total.

I too fell in love with the look of the Lexus gauges & their sophisticated illumination methods. i even lookind into building a timer that would keep the cluster off for about 2 seconds after the car had started, to give it that "delay-on" look.

 

[Traveler]

Has anyone looked at the Continental gauges? They are really cool I think. The gauges are actually Horizontal and backwards in the top of the cluster. The Needles are in the traditional location. A mirror shows the gauges superimposed over the needles so that the needles actually look like "ghosts" over the gauges. I'd love to figure out how to get that done in a T-bird.

Scott, did you get my most recent email about the gauges for my latest T-bird?

 

[Essex8800]

ive scraped all of the green off of my gauges.....theyre all white and red now.....porkchop if you can send me some info on your led setup as well as where to find the leds needed....it would be greatly appreciated.....i can see the nums real good during the day now without the tint (lumination wise) so with the leds i may have luck...

 

[Porkchop]

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