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Changing your backlight color in your gauges

229K views 450 replies 216 participants last post by  waterkastle  
#1 ·
First off I have to give thanks to Kailanialoha , he posted up about switching his backlight color on his gauges. To see the original post go here, http://kawiforums.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=32466, without his post I would not have tried this, Thanks.

How To: Changing your backlight color in your gauges.

Tools Needed: Soldering Iron (I used a 15 watt one), Solder w/ Resin Flux, 10mm socket, Phillips head screw driver, Needle nose pliers, 4mm Allen key

Parts Needed: 3.5mm x 2.8mm Surface Mount Leds, these can be order at eLED.com, color is up to you but the blue looks to be the best imo, I had also used some green one but they didn’t look to good, I post a picture to show the green at the end. You will need 12 LEDs to switch out all the backlights. Another option is if you only want to switch out the tach lights or the speedo lights separately. Each one uses 6 LEDs and you can mix and match also, it will be easier to understand when you take a look at the pictures. The blue LEDs, cost $1.70 each, part number EA3528PBC 3.5X2.8MM BLUE SMT LED.

Time: It took me about 2 hours the first time, including removal and install of the gauges.

Notes: Please be Careful! Soldering irons get hot and can burn you and your gauges if you not careful. Also I am only telling you what I did so you can do it yourself, if you mess up don’t blame me. This is not a very difficult thing to do. I had no soldering experience when I did this but was able to with no problems.


Steps:
1-remove gauges: First remove both mirrors use the 10mm, next use the 4mm Allen to remove the windscreen, 2 of the screws will have a bolt on the back instead of the rubber nut things, you should be able to remove these by holding them with your fingers. Ok now you should have your mirrors and windscreen off. Now we will remove the mirror bracket, it is held on by 4, 10mm bolts, one on the bottom left, one on the bottom right and 2 on the back. To remove the 2 bolts on the back you have to have the windscreen removed to access them with a 10mm socket. Now you should have the mirror bracket with the gauges attached, unclip the wire harness from the gauges, the rubber cover will pull back to let you get to the clip. Now you can remove the 3 Phillips head screws to remove the gauges from the mirror bracket.

2-disassemble gauges: Remove the 5 phillips head screws from the back of the gauges and lift the back cover up and off, , now remove the 4 phillips head screws that hold the circuit board, , the circuit board can now be lifted up and out of the front cover of the gauges, , next you will need to carefully pull the 2 circuit boards apart, they are held together only by the one white connecter as seen in the picture, , put the back circuit board to the side, now you will need to fold back 6 metal tabs that holds the display to the circuit board, I am pointing to one of the 6 with the screwdriver, use the needle nose pliers to bend them gently,
, once all 6 tabs are bent out you should be able to lift the circuit board from the display, you may have to jiggle it a little and the display may want to stick to the circuit board, gently pull them apart, , now you can see all your LEDs on the frontside of the front circuit board,
,

3-remove LEDs: Now you will need to have you soldering iron heated up to remove the stock LEDs, I did this by heating one side at a time and lifting the LED with the pliers until I could pull it off. Be Careful!! Here you can see I removed all the speedo LEDs, ,

4-install LEDs: I would only do a few LEDs at a time because they are easy to lose, also the LEDs will only work if you installed them the correct way because they are a diode the current must flow the correct way. If you forget which way just take a look at the other LEDs on the board, they all go the same direction. Once you have the LED the right direction solder it back into place where the old one was. If you do not know how to solder then please look it up online or have a friend that know how to do it, its not to hard, I learned from reading online.

5-Test: You can test the LEDs at any point to make sure they are working, you just have to connect the 2 circuit boards again and then plug it back into the wire harness and turn the key on. If some of the LEDs are not working check you direction and the solder job, it may be on the wrong way or have a bad connection. Once everything is done and everything tests ok then continue.

6-Reassemble gauges: reverse order of step 2

7-Install gauges: reverse order of step 1

8-Smile and be amazment at the job well done

Some of the blue LEDs installed.


Here is a picture of the gauges when I had the green LEDs in the Tach and the stock speedo before I switched to the blue LEDs.
 
#2 ·
Clap Clap Clap!!! Excellant tutorial. I have been reading the orginal post and did not want to rip apart the speedo with out seeing the internals. This showed me whats up and the leds are on order from www.eled.com I am also buying multicolor leds for the nuetural light and brights http://www.lsdiodes.com/multi-color/ the ones all the way at the bottom. They have 2 legs (one + and one -) yet they rotate through colors. click on it tto check pic. But thanks agian. Im doing the speedo in blue and tach in red.
 
#309 ·
question

I went to the led site, but there's so many led to choose from...Then when i click on one, even more Led pop up. which one do i need?


Clap Clap Clap!!! Excellant tutorial. I have been reading the orginal post and did not want to rip apart the speedo with out seeing the internals. This showed me whats up and the leds are on order from www.eled.com I am also buying multicolor leds for the nuetural light and brights http://www.lsdiodes.com/multi-color/ the ones all the way at the bottom. They have 2 legs (one + and one -) yet they rotate through colors. click on it tto check pic. But thanks agian. Im doing the speedo in blue and tach in red.
 
#3 ·
Nice Perfect How-To
and I learned something new
I did not know the LED's were seperated in different sections(Tach & Speedo)
I wish I new before, now I think I'll mach my Tach Red
[:M86]
 
#6 ·
Yea, in the day time there is a slight blue if it is cloudy, but if it is bright and sunny you cannot see any blue. Here is a picture I took when I first put the gauges on, I forgot to take the flash off so it looks like it is day time.
 
#8 ·
I posted this in another gauges thread but thought I put it here too.

Hey guys, just thought I'd let you know to get good results with colors like green, yellow, and white, you need freaking bright LEDs! It is usually better to get LEDs though a electronic parts warehouse as you get a big selection and can find exactly what you need with all the specs listed.

I am suprised no one here has mentioned DigiKey yet? http://www.digikey.com
I use them so much to buy parts for my hobbiest electroincs projects. They have EVERYTHING you could ever need to fix or build anything electronic from scratch.

Go there and type this into parts search "osram plcc-2 (CT)" without the quotes, that'll give you a list of some nice bright ass LEDs in many colors that will fit the Kawasaki guages. I just ordered me up a set of different colors to figure out what I like on my cluster. If you want detailed specs, click the PDF logos on the right column and then click the datasheets.

Happy Modding!

-Jerry
 
#9 ·
Originally posted by Special Ed
Nice DIY... ya know.. if you're into that kind of stuff. Hehehe.:D I'm usually busy just keeping my bike from falling apart.
Maybe you should upgrade to a newer model ZX-10R ;).

willyr1er, I noticed that you said to use a 4mm allen to remove the windscreen. Isn't it a #25 torx, though? That's what's on mine.
 
#11 ·
Originally posted by stoney812
any recommendations on making the crappy fuel light a bit more noticable?
Switch it out with a brighter one. I am not sure what brightness is in there right now, but you could just get the brightest 3mm LED you can find. And if that is not bright enough and you want it brighter, change out the current resistor powering the LED as well to be closer to the max power it can take. I noticed Kawasaki was conservative in their current resistors on the LEDs to keep them dim. They are only running about 12 mA through the stock yellow LEDs in the backlight. The stock LEDs should handle 30 mA max.

I just replaced my LEDs in mine with a nice colorful combo but because of all the different forward voltages between these different color LEDs, I am only running 6-8 mA of current through them with the stock resistors and I bought Power LEDs that can take 20-30 mA max. I should go through and switch out some resistors to get it up to around 15 mA to get some more brightness out of these, but I may just leave it as these Power LEDs I bought are very high efficency and thus look pretty damn good at these low currents anyways. May blind me at night if I make them any brighter than they are now. Check out my Mod here, see what you guys think.
http://kawiforums.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=34256

-Jerry
 
#18 ·
#19 ·
Everyone doing this mod has an 03 or newer. Blueguages.com only offers it on those years too. For an 01 they just replace a faceplate. Can someone tell me if this mod can work on a 2001? Are my led's and all the other shit in the guage the same???
 
#21 ·
yo, i think i burnt my board, and is that even possible! I used flux or flush whatever that shit is to solder things together, and 2 of the lights i put on work, and the rest don't. I thin maybe cause there is too much solder on the connection, lights suck (i tried many, or because the board is toast. Anyone have any suggestions or ideas? and can you just buy that lower portion of the board instead of the whole gauge?
 
#22 ·
You might just have a bad connection point on one or more of the LEDs. If you didn't have a good connection with the board and any of the LEDs got loose after riding, it can stop the rest of the LEDs from lighting up. Because you broke the chain, so power can't get to the rest of the LEDs. Just check all your solder connections, maybe even an LED burnt out. Then if you can get your hands on a multimeter, hook the board up to the bike and run over all the positive solder points to see if actually you did burn the board. Hope that helps.
 
#25 ·
Originally posted by Vodkazmaslom
yo, i think i burnt my board, and is that even possible! I used flux or flush whatever that shit is to solder things together, and 2 of the lights i put on work, and the rest don't. I thin maybe cause there is too much solder on the connection, lights suck (i tried many, or because the board is toast. Anyone have any suggestions or ideas? and can you just buy that lower portion of the board instead of the whole gauge?
You have to be very careful with these SMT power LEDs, they are very easy to damage. They can be damaged by ESD (just touching them with static electricity on you) and by overheating from soldering. You should only heat them up for a second or two, any longer and its easy to toast them. Do not use ANY extra flux at all, the rosin flux in the solder is plenty enough. Use very thin 60/40 solder, like 0.02 inch diameter. You need a very very small amount of solder on the joint.

To make the job super easy, it helps to have the right tools, a tweezer iron designed to remove SMT parts helps here. And when soldering the parts back on, a temperature controlled with ESD protection soldering iron with a 15 mil (1/64") tip helps alot. Makes it easier to hit the small pads and also prevent damage from overheating and ESD discharges.

Example: http://www.jameco.com/Jameco/catalogs/c252/P235.pdf
The 60-Watt soldering station Part Number 236101CH is a temp controlled ESD safe soldering iron and has a SMD tweezer iron option that can be attached to it. (Part 168401CH)

A cheap 40-watt iron that plugs straight into the outlet is very likely to fry your LEDs. If you are gonna use a cheap iron, make sure its 15 Watts or less, no more!

-Jerry