Hey, I did my entire led conversion for my center dash piece, but am having trouble with ONE of them. You know the 2 knobs, one for temp change(right) and the other for the level(left)? Well I got the bulb changed for the right knob, but the left knob is like a 3 or 5mm wedge bulb. Oh and I have an LX if that helps. But my question is, how would I go about changing this with an led bulb? Would I use 3 or 5mm? So do I hook up a resistor to is and just stick it in? Thanks.

 

got pics of what you did so far? i'm tempted to do this ... but i really want to know how much work is involved

 

Well I'll tell you this.....soldering the resistor on the led is a BITCH to do. I actually don't udnerstand howsome people can do it so easily, but I'm workin' on it. The first led took me about 2 hours with much patience and frustration. But I don't have pics yet, but will try as soon as I can. Sorry.

 

whenever is good

 

its all about skill and your soilder iron, invest in one that you can adjust your temp.

 

Ok well I think I got the skill part down. Now I have another question. Is there different TYPES of solder? I didn't realize it but I bought the light duty solder and I looked at entcee's site and he uses another type of solder, so I went to get that solder and haven't tried yet, but it's a LOT thinner thant he solder I used. The solder I have just rolls off of everything and doesn't stick at all, but it did stick to the little prongs coming out of the led, which helped a bit. That's why I had such a big problem trying to get it to stick and soldering everything together.

 

yeah, there are differnet types of solder. If you're having problems with it not sticking, you may have to find what is called "flux" (spelling?) If you dip the leads of the LED into the flux first, the solder will stick much easier. And you'll need a 330 ohm resistor... the colors will be orange, orange, brown... you can ignore the 4th color band...that's the tolorance level.

 

Well, having soldering quite a few electronics, I can say that if the solder is rolling off the item being soldered, then the item is not at the right temperature. The idea is to use a soldering iron that is high enough wattage to heat the object being soldered quick enough so that the whole object doesn't burn. Once the object reaches the right temperature, you will find that the solder sticks and flows along it really easy.

A lower wattage soldering iron allows you to do everything more slowly, but it can increase the chance of you burning the component being soldered. A higher wattage soldering iron means everything needs to be done much quicker, or the component being soldered will burn up much quicker.

I hope my explanation is clear enough. Soldering flux acts as a heat transferring medium. It give the item being soldered and the tip of the soldering iron a little more contact area so the object heats up quicker. If you practice enough, you probably won't need to use flux anymore.

 

What exactly is flux? Where can I get some also? Ok I can sort of understand about the heat transfer and everything too, but I don't think it's because of that. Not in my situation anyways. Some of the resistors actually got the solder to stick on easily, but others just didn't seem to work at all. Well what about the different types of solder? Wouldn't different types help aid in better contact without it having to roll off of objects? Sometimes I even took the resistors and it would stick onto the soldering iron, on accident, and then that would mean its really hot, but still, the solder wouldn't stick onto it. Just rolls right off. Thanks for all you guys help. You guys have actually helped me a lot more than any other people in other forums because they just like to be asses by telling me to go buy the led's or asking other questions that have NOTHING to do with what I am asking. Oh well. Thanks again.