Replacing panel lights bulbs with LED-based bulbs

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og
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Location: San Jose, CA

Replacing panel lights bulbs with LED-based bulbs

Post by og »

For some time I was thinking about replacing incandescent light bulbs in Pinz dashboard with LED-based replacement bulbs. After some research I found the CML Innovative Technologies (CML being the Chicago Miniature Lamp) makes LED-based lamp replacements in several colors and in 6,12,24,28 etc. voltages. They come in one LED and 3-LED versions. The part number for a white 24V part is 1860235W3. Mouser stocks them. These are just under 1" long and fit just barely, but they do fit fine and do not touch the plastic lights cover.
There is more space on lockers, so lamps there can be a bit longer then 1". Problem with these lamps is that they cost $5-6 apiece for red ones and double that for any other color. Versions with 3 LEDs (probably too bright for our application) cost triple that. Ouch!
To replace all light bulbs on a panel and lockers one needs 13 lamps, 4 red, 6 green, 1 blue and two white. Of course, white LEDs can be used everywhere, but if your plastic cover is fading, buying properly colored light bulb will produce desired color of light even if cover is faded. I looked a bit more and found some cheaper LED-based replacement bulbs. Superbrightleds.com sells them. Red ones go for $1, other colors for double that. They are however too long to fit. After some
scratching I figured the dome is really solid plastic. So I took belt sander and took-off 1/4" of the plastic dome. Takes about 10 seconds per lamp. That left rough surface on what is now "lens" so I polished it with 800-grit sandpaper.
Place it onto the flat hard surface flip the bulb upside down and polish it that way. Very fast method. That milky liquid used to polish faded plastic headlamps can be used to polish the ground surface even further, but even without it, it works just fine. To find those lamps, go to superbrightleds.com web site, go to upper right corner and select:

LED lights->RV, Marine, Landscape-> BA9s and BA7s LED bulbs. Then choose BA9s Lamps
and select BA9s-x LED bulb model.

On this one you can choose color and voltage. Choose 28V and colors you want. One note about polarity. Incandescent lamps are by definition bipolar, or in layman's terms, polarity does not matter. Both DC and AC voltage will heat the wire (will be a bit dimmer with AC), so that does not matter either. For a LED-based lamp to be true incandescent replacement, it must work just as an incandescent lamp it replaces. So, all these LED-based replacement bulbs contain full-wave (Graetz) rectifier (4 diodes) and one resistor in series with LED. So polarity is a non-issue for these lamps and they work with both AC and DC voltages. Hence they are all marked xxVAC, xx being nominal voltage.
Superbrightleds has a reasonable shipping of $5 so for about $27 and about 1/2 hr. of your time, you can replace all light bulbs on your dashboard.
So, I guess this moves about 0.01% of Pinz into the 21st century. 99.9% to go.

I hope someone finds this useful.

Disclosure: No position in superbrightleds.com

Left, CML bulb, 3-LED superbrightleds lamp (not for Pinz dashboard use), one-LED BA9s and same lamp modded for Pinz.
Image
Last edited by og on Sat Nov 14, 2009 11:43 pm, edited 3 times in total.
OG
Twin Pinzies
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Post by Twin Pinzies »

Pinzgauers have dash lights? Well I'll be damned! You learn something new every day.
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pcolette
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Post by pcolette »

og,

Thanks for the write up. I just ordered a set for my dash strip from superbrightleds.com. Great prices!

Paul
Paul C.
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'73 Swiss 710M
'89 Puch 230GE
texas pinzgauer
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Post by texas pinzgauer »

No photo? Then it didn't happen!

How about some photos of this project?
Looking for next new (for me) toy
1974 712M - sold
1973 710M - sold

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krick3tt
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dash lights

Post by krick3tt »

I kept the bulbs but did repaint the little squares. Got some glass paint at a hobby store and removed them and repainted. Cost was out of sight for new strip...cost for paint was $6. Left the brake square white and it really shows up well.
Erik712m
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Post by Erik712m »

Og and morris. Pics?
og
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Post by og »

:D
Last edited by og on Sat Nov 14, 2009 11:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
OG
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totaljoint
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Post by totaljoint »

Thanks for the pic, now I understand what you sanded down. What happens if I sand a little to far?
Wish I knew how to post the pic on the forum to share!
Ed
krick3tt
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dash lights

Post by krick3tt »

Tough to take pics at night but here goes.

http://s400.photobucket.com/albums/pp88 ... MG3461.jpg

http://s400.photobucket.com/albums/pp88 ... MG3462.jpg

If you go to the photo bucket page you will probably see other shots of the pinz as well.

Morris
og
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Post by og »

totaljoint wrote:Thanks for the pic, now I understand what you sanded down. What happens if I sand a little to far?
Wish I knew how to post the pic on the forum to share!
Ed
Diode die is visible through plastic, it is at the bottom of the dome, and there is plenty of plastic there and final dimension is not critical at all.
Last edited by og on Sat Nov 14, 2009 11:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
OG
krick3tt
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dash lights

Post by krick3tt »

OG,

Can't post it. Try photobucket, its free.

Just so you know, I am not a computer wizard.

Once you put a pic on photobucket you can copy the http header at the top and insert it into the post on 4x4. I do this cause some folks don't have high speed and dial up has limited bandwidth, it would be too slow for them to download some pics.

Morris
og
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Post by og »

Pic posted.
OG
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