2000 Accord Climate Control LED Mod
Background:
6th generation Accords (98-02) use amber bulbs and a blue filter to produce a white-ish light in their gauges, clocks, radio, etc. If one of the bulbs burns out and you try to replace it with a white LED your instruments will be blue.
Goal:
Replace bulbs with white LEDS and have them look white.
Notes:
This gets pretty involved and difficult. I am not responsable for your screwups.
I use Climate Control and HVAC interchangeably.
I bought all my LEDs from superbrightleds.com :
-3 NEO4-W Bulbs (<- These didn't work well at all)
-4 count of 74-WHP3 Bulb
Tools:
Small flathead and phillips screwdriver
Aluminum Tape(optional)
Q-Tips
Fingernail Polish Remover
Dremel tool
Soldering iron
Steps:
- Remove the clock and front bezel from your console
- Unscrew the 5 bolts around the climate control to remove it form the bezel
Looking at the HVAC from the back you will see a bulb attached to a couple wires towards the right hand side. You can remove it from the white plastic piece by twisting it then remove the bulb from the black socket by wiggling it. The later part may take a while.
Replace the bulb with the 75-WHP3 (takes more wiggling). You may want to go back to your car and make sure the light makes good contact and lights up.
Remove the two round knobs from the front by pulling on them. Inside there is a blue filter glued in. Remove them.
Flip the HVAC on it's side and start releasing the white tabs with a flathead screwdriver. There are 4 on the bottom, 5 on the top, and one on the side.
Under the 3 buttons on the bottom there are black plungers that push the button. These will continually fall our while you work without the faceplate on so I suggest putting them to the side and not forgetting to install them before reattaching the faceplate.
Under the 5 buttons on top there is a black rubber strip. Do the same thing as the plungers above, making sure not to forget it before you're finished.
Remove the 8 buttons by lifting them vertically and taking them off very gently. I broke a lot of my white plastic tabs in this process so I'm not going to bother including pictures of how to do it wrong. If they break don't worry the buttons will still work they'll just be loose.
Some of the openings for light to get through are blocked off by some plastic pieces. I snapped these off with a screwdriver. I'm not sure if they serve any sort of function or help diffuse the light - and at this point I really don't care.
Next we'll remove the blue tint from the buttons:
Grab one of the 8 buttons you removed and you'll see on the side the are held to the base by small tabs. Gently use a flathead screwdriver to separate the two pieces.
Remove the blue filter beneath it (it should pop out). Do this to all 8 buttons. Reassemble the buttons, snap them back into the holders.
-We now need to remove the blue filter from the 'Off-1-2-3-4' displays on the faceplate
Dip a q-tip in your nail polish remover and scrub the letters from the inside of the faceplate. Be slow and gentle and conservative with the amount on the q-tip, but remember that the acetone will evaporate rather quickly. You want to scrub the letters until they turn clear and let light pass through easily. DO NOT continue to scrub once your reach this point or you will right of removing ALL of the black around the letters are well. This is very tedious and easy to screw up so tread lightly.
Once you have finished you will have removed the blue tint from the letters and you should be able to see them very easily when held up to a light. (This is also a good way to check and see if you've missed a spot)
While I had the faceplate off i covered the backing of where the knob mounts with aluminum tape. I guess this step is optional but i think it'll help to spread out the light from the LED.
-At this point you can put the buttons back in (with plungers and rubber pieces) and snap the faceplate back on the next few steps could be considered optional so read ahead before deciding if you want to do them or not.
Looking at the HVAC from the back, remove the screws. Take the black plastic housing and circuitboard out and set them to the side.
-An optional step while you here is to replace the LEDs on the circuit board with brighter ones/different colors/etc. This is as simple as desoldering the old/soldering the new and there are a million how-to's covering that.
There is a big plastic white piece used here to diffuse the light. If you wanted you could take a dremel to this, but you'll probably end up with a 'hot spot' in your temp guage. I decided to just cover it with aluminum tape and hope that a decent amount of light bounces around.
You remove the red/blue color wheel out by sliding a flathead through the vents (see previous picture). It's just glued in there so once you get a gap you can pull it back. I tried taking acetone to it but it doesn't seem to be covered in any sort of tint. I put a few more pieces of aluminum tape on the inside (where I couldn't reach from the back) and put it all back together.
-Now the hard part! Making your custom bulbs. Start by removing the 3 twist bulbs in the circuit board
Now remove the old bulb out of the base by first untwisting the wires in the bottom of the base until they are straight then secondly pulling on the bulb while holding the base.
Then drill a 3/16" hole in the middle all the way through the base.
You should now be able to shove an LED a little ways into one of the holders (may be a tight fit, but don't break anything). At this point I stuck the base back into the circuit board then marked on the base where left and right is to make sure the LEDS on the side are facing the proper way in the next step.
You'll need to small groove in one side of the base to make room for the black component that's off center on the LED. Make sure you cut the grove where the LED will still be aligned properly left and right when you put it back into the circuit board.
At this point there should be a little bit of circuit board sticking out of the bottom of the base of your bulb. You're going to want to solder a solid wire (not stranded) to each one of the leads on either side. I used Ethernet wire and it worked like a charm. Wind them through the grooves the old bulb used.
-Put everything back together and test it out. You'll no doubt have one or more stubborn bulbs - check to make sure the contacts on the circuit board is clean, your solder joints are good, the bulb isn't loose, etc.
Good luck!
More pictures:
The left portion (off 1 2 3 4) has been fitted with LEDs. The rest have the filter removed but no LEDs. You can see in this picture this difference between the brightness and color 'temperature'. Note that the 3 and 4 do appear a little brighter due to the location of the LED. You could probably use some more aluminum tape or paper to diffuse this, but it's really not that noticable (the picture exaggerates it).
Custom bulbs in the buttons and temp control knob. Notice the lighting is even and even the defrost button is well lit. You can also tell that I swapped the green LED for a brighter one.
6th generation Accords (98-02) use amber bulbs and a blue filter to produce a white-ish light in their gauges, clocks, radio, etc. If one of the bulbs burns out and you try to replace it with a white LED your instruments will be blue.
Goal:
Replace bulbs with white LEDS and have them look white.
Notes:
This gets pretty involved and difficult. I am not responsable for your screwups.
I use Climate Control and HVAC interchangeably.
I bought all my LEDs from superbrightleds.com :
-4 count of 74-WHP3 Bulb
Tools:
Small flathead and phillips screwdriver
Aluminum Tape(optional)
Q-Tips
Fingernail Polish Remover
Dremel tool
Soldering iron
Steps:
- Remove the clock and front bezel from your console
- Unscrew the 5 bolts around the climate control to remove it form the bezel
Looking at the HVAC from the back you will see a bulb attached to a couple wires towards the right hand side. You can remove it from the white plastic piece by twisting it then remove the bulb from the black socket by wiggling it. The later part may take a while.
Replace the bulb with the 75-WHP3 (takes more wiggling). You may want to go back to your car and make sure the light makes good contact and lights up.
Remove the two round knobs from the front by pulling on them. Inside there is a blue filter glued in. Remove them.
Flip the HVAC on it's side and start releasing the white tabs with a flathead screwdriver. There are 4 on the bottom, 5 on the top, and one on the side.
Under the 3 buttons on the bottom there are black plungers that push the button. These will continually fall our while you work without the faceplate on so I suggest putting them to the side and not forgetting to install them before reattaching the faceplate.
Under the 5 buttons on top there is a black rubber strip. Do the same thing as the plungers above, making sure not to forget it before you're finished.Remove the 8 buttons by lifting them vertically and taking them off very gently. I broke a lot of my white plastic tabs in this process so I'm not going to bother including pictures of how to do it wrong. If they break don't worry the buttons will still work they'll just be loose.
Some of the openings for light to get through are blocked off by some plastic pieces. I snapped these off with a screwdriver. I'm not sure if they serve any sort of function or help diffuse the light - and at this point I really don't care.Next we'll remove the blue tint from the buttons:
Grab one of the 8 buttons you removed and you'll see on the side the are held to the base by small tabs. Gently use a flathead screwdriver to separate the two pieces.
Remove the blue filter beneath it (it should pop out). Do this to all 8 buttons. Reassemble the buttons, snap them back into the holders.-We now need to remove the blue filter from the 'Off-1-2-3-4' displays on the faceplate
Dip a q-tip in your nail polish remover and scrub the letters from the inside of the faceplate. Be slow and gentle and conservative with the amount on the q-tip, but remember that the acetone will evaporate rather quickly. You want to scrub the letters until they turn clear and let light pass through easily. DO NOT continue to scrub once your reach this point or you will right of removing ALL of the black around the letters are well. This is very tedious and easy to screw up so tread lightly.
Once you have finished you will have removed the blue tint from the letters and you should be able to see them very easily when held up to a light. (This is also a good way to check and see if you've missed a spot)
While I had the faceplate off i covered the backing of where the knob mounts with aluminum tape. I guess this step is optional but i think it'll help to spread out the light from the LED.-At this point you can put the buttons back in (with plungers and rubber pieces) and snap the faceplate back on the next few steps could be considered optional so read ahead before deciding if you want to do them or not.
Looking at the HVAC from the back, remove the screws. Take the black plastic housing and circuitboard out and set them to the side.-An optional step while you here is to replace the LEDs on the circuit board with brighter ones/different colors/etc. This is as simple as desoldering the old/soldering the new and there are a million how-to's covering that.
There is a big plastic white piece used here to diffuse the light. If you wanted you could take a dremel to this, but you'll probably end up with a 'hot spot' in your temp guage. I decided to just cover it with aluminum tape and hope that a decent amount of light bounces around.
You remove the red/blue color wheel out by sliding a flathead through the vents (see previous picture). It's just glued in there so once you get a gap you can pull it back. I tried taking acetone to it but it doesn't seem to be covered in any sort of tint. I put a few more pieces of aluminum tape on the inside (where I couldn't reach from the back) and put it all back together.-Now the hard part! Making your custom bulbs. Start by removing the 3 twist bulbs in the circuit board
Now remove the old bulb out of the base by first untwisting the wires in the bottom of the base until they are straight then secondly pulling on the bulb while holding the base.Then drill a 3/16" hole in the middle all the way through the base.
You should now be able to shove an LED a little ways into one of the holders (may be a tight fit, but don't break anything). At this point I stuck the base back into the circuit board then marked on the base where left and right is to make sure the LEDS on the side are facing the proper way in the next step.
You'll need to small groove in one side of the base to make room for the black component that's off center on the LED. Make sure you cut the grove where the LED will still be aligned properly left and right when you put it back into the circuit board.
At this point there should be a little bit of circuit board sticking out of the bottom of the base of your bulb. You're going to want to solder a solid wire (not stranded) to each one of the leads on either side. I used Ethernet wire and it worked like a charm. Wind them through the grooves the old bulb used.-Put everything back together and test it out. You'll no doubt have one or more stubborn bulbs - check to make sure the contacts on the circuit board is clean, your solder joints are good, the bulb isn't loose, etc.
Good luck!
More pictures:
The left portion (off 1 2 3 4) has been fitted with LEDs. The rest have the filter removed but no LEDs. You can see in this picture this difference between the brightness and color 'temperature'. Note that the 3 and 4 do appear a little brighter due to the location of the LED. You could probably use some more aluminum tape or paper to diffuse this, but it's really not that noticable (the picture exaggerates it).
Custom bulbs in the buttons and temp control knob. Notice the lighting is even and even the defrost button is well lit. You can also tell that I swapped the green LED for a brighter one.
posted by TJH at
1:32 PM
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