DIY: Painted console and led illumination

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spastic
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DIY: Painted console and led illumination

Post by spastic »

Thought I'd chuck up some pics of my interior mods to date.

I've painted various panels in metallic argon silver, which turned out a little more blue than I would have liked, but still looks ok.

The speaker pods I made out of fibreglass & mdf to fit into the standard grille space and covered off with a thin t-shirt fabric. It's kinda hard to see from the pics, but these angle the speakers somewhere between the driver and passenger and really bring up the mid-bass and "front stage" (hate using that terminology, since dodgy car audio salespeople abuse it to death).
You can't see them too well, but the tweeters are mounted in the dash, behind the left & right vents facing up toward the windscreen. The shape of the windscreen seems to spread the treble nicely.

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I replaced the standard globes with surface mount leds soldered into the standard globe bases with required resistor (my flatmate Foe has replied to a previous post about this before). I used these instead of standard leds as I figured they have a wider viewing angle which eliminates any bright/dull spots plus they were available. They're more than bright enough as you can see, but take a fair bit of fiddling to make up.. this exercise cost about $60 all up.

I still need to put red leds in for the needles in the main gauges, but you can see the effect in the clock and voltmeter... looks absolutely wicked at night.

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That's all for now. Sorry about the dodgy quality pics, I'll try get some better ones another time. Comments & criticism welcome.

-spastic rob
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Slither
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Post by Slither »

Looks wicked as man, love the silver!!

And would i b rite in assuming that the song on the radio in the last pics is "aliens exist" by blink 182??? if so good chice of music!!!
tomy33
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Post by tomy33 »

faa dats nice
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Boris
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Post by Boris »

*wipes drool*

Nice man... It's so nice to actually do the work your self, get's you to really appriciate your car... :wink:
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Foe
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Post by Foe »

Yeah not bad, I prefer a previous owners paint job I think he did his in kashmir pearl ;).
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fto617
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Post by fto617 »

hmm mann madddddddddddd stuff !!!
could someone post up some DIY on how to paint your own interior :(
i envy them !
i dunno how to pull out everything
and dunno what to use and what to do etc etc
soeone help????
fto12345
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Post by fto12345 »

So is that kashmir spray paint a brand name or a type of colour?

Cause I have been looking for them but couldn't fine them any where....
:(
jester
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great work

Post by jester »

hey spastic rob! (thats what we shuld call u rite?! :) )

WELCOME! :P

Nice <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=Job&v=56">Job</a> man!!
Looks great - i <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=love&v=56">love</a> your LED project- cant notice many hotspots at all.
BLue leds or white leds?? looks blue

Do you have plans a dial upgrade??

GOOD WORK!!!
PS. where r u located?
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GPXXX
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Post by GPXXX »

i love what you've done to the fibreglass pod for the front door speakers... looks l33t!! ;)
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spastic
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Post by spastic »

thanks for all the thumbs ups lads (& ladettes? hmm, probably not) :D

yep, the leds are blue suface mount leds that I ordered from some guy in melbourne. jaycar sells similar ones, but they're smaller and a little less bright. he accidentally sent me some green ones aswell, so they ended up in the climate control. turned out to be a good thing since any sunlight on the cc with blue light makes it virtually invisible.

jester - thanx for the welcome. yeah, spastic rob's fine ;) politically incorrect- maybe... all i could come up with at the time- definately.
I haven't really considered upgrading the dials, but wouldn't rule it out. btw - i'm in fortitude valley, brisbane.

gpxxx - thanks, the pods were my first fibreglass project and turned out really well.. next on the list: homemade bodykit (not).
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RallyMad
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Post by RallyMad »

That looks great mate, I reckon it will look really good when the leds at installed for the needles, here is a question for anyone though, does the led for the needle fit into the base of the needle (where the pivot point it)? Has everyone had a good effect with this or does the light sometimes not compeltely luminate the needles lenght? And what is in there as standard? Sorry for all the questions :?
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Post by ruchi »

RallyMad wrote:does the led for the needle fit into the base of the needle (where the pivot point it)?
No. The needles do not have lights directly behind them. There are 5 bulbs dotted around the dash which provide all the background lighting for the main dials and needles.
RallyMad wrote:Has everyone had a good effect with this or does the light sometimes not compeltely luminate the needles lenght? And what is in there as standard? Sorry for all the questions :?
The reason why the needles have turned out so dull for Spastic Rob is for two reasons:
1) The LEDs installed are not bright enough
2) The LEDs installed are emiting blue light yet the needles are orange. Sending blue light down an orange piece of plastic doesn't work very well :wink:
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FTO338
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Post by FTO338 »

Great Job S.Rob They look fantastic :D
DISCLAIMER: The above text is the personal opinion of the author and does not represent the indisputable truth. The author is not responsible for any deaths, injuries or mental illness caused by the above statments.
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spastic
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Post by spastic »

thanks fto388 !

hi ruchi!

the leds are definitely bright enough for what they're there to do.. the problem is reflecting true blue light off an orange surface... it doesn't work (not meaning to sound defensive or anything :wink:)

(conceptually) the needles light up like this...
http://www.geocities.com/redexa2000/dial_graphic.jpg
(copy and paste into new browser if the pic doesn't show)
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it's just the underside of the needle that's coloured, the needle itself is clear.. it might be possible to remove the orange and re-paint watever colour you want the needle, but i think red on blue kicks.
the large flat area being the clear plastic directly behind the gauges.. it's got some complex angles and bits hanging off it to distribute the light from a globe evenly, but yeah.

to get red light to just the needle is tricky (ie. keeping it away from other parts of the display). i'm taking the approach of getting a narrow angle red led and finding a location that will direct the light primarily into the needle. it wasn't too tricky with the voltmeter and clock, but they're much smaller than the dash, so remains to be seen how well that'll work out.

i won't get to it for a couple of weeks, but will let ya know how it goes.

my justification for fiddling around with this piddely mod is that it's cheap, easy and well, fun (call me a geek).. and i think i'll be happy with the results, so ner :lol:

-spastic rob
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Guni_GuGu
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Post by Guni_GuGu »

I have to say UN-FUKEN BELIEAVBLE!!! Truely, some GREAT GREAT sh*t their!!!

And i'm sorry, but when I ever get around to painting my console, I'm sooooo doing the surrounds of my fronts like that!! Wow! It looks good!

The led's even look fuken sweet!!

I'm going to buy one of those white/blue dash things for the fto, what will happen, if I add some led's behind there??

What led's did you buy again? And how'd you connect them up?
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Post by EURO »

it jsut goes very blue lol..

there is an led tutorial in the styling section......

i just used blue sleeves over the existing globes but its not quite bright enough - although with white dials still looks good
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Post by RallyMad »

ahh ok, thanks ruchi and spastic-rob that all makes a lot more sense now. :oops: :D
indyfto
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Post by indyfto »

Hmmm nice. Same black ashtray as your flatmates FTO though :wink:

Fancy making up another set of door speaker pods - seriously! I have been considering getting Northfield to make me some just like yours for a while now but on the other hand if you can make them... :D
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spastic
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Post by spastic »

i think the ashtray is best left black, along with the lighter socket bit next to it. whoever owned the car before me completely removed the lighter socket and black surrounding bit though.. probably had a starter button or something in there.

i'd like to know if/where i could get another, but am guessing it's a wrecking yard only job, unless someone wants to sell theirs :D anyone? anyone?

since i bought the car i've found five switches in various locations that are no longer connected to anything and wouldn't be suprised if there's more :?

Guni_GuGu-
personally, i'd recommend following ruchi's guide for a dash led upgrade (sticky post in this forum). the sufrace mount leds are cool, but you'll get a headache soldering them (longest edge being only 1.6mm) and they're not as bright.. ideally, i'd like to go back and add some more leds to the ones i have already put in to bump up the brightness, but it's not really necessary.

'nuff said

-spastic rob
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Post by ruchi »

As I mentioned in the sticky post on LED replacements, technology is improving all the time and it looks like we may have an even more workable solution for the FTO in the not too distant future.

There is a manufactuter who is now making LEDs which have a wide-enough angle and which are bright enough for behind the dash that are a direct replacement!!! No more striping off the plastic or soldering!!!

Now we just have to wait for these to filter down to a distributor / retail level (unless you want to buy 10,000 of them :P).
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