I have always found the instrument illumination (including the center stack) to be very dim in daylight, to the point of being hard to read. (XJ8 VDP)

And I noticed that the illumination brightness stays the same whether I turn the headlights on or off. Which turns out to be bright enough at night, but not nearly bright enough in daylight. Is this normal for Jaguars?

 

I agree it is sort of dim. I keep my brightness up all the way all of the time at this point (with the little adjuster on the side of the steering column) maybe with LEDs it could be made more bright

 

Yup, my VDP is noticeably dimmer than my previous car, but it is bright-enough, there are no issues reading the gauges in any light

 

Done a full interior led conversion, bit of a mission, soldered most, and it's one of those projects that evolved....

Before I did the stereo...compare the brightness of climate v stereo...


Broad daylight




At night, lowest setting




The great thing is I never have to fit another interior bulb again, no heat and no rubber bonnets.

 

Sean -
That's fabulous. Which LEDs did you use where? I know there are supposedly direct replacements that don't need soldering. But did you have to (or choose to) use solder-type LEDs for all of your bulbs?

 

Boomer, if I listed every diode and resisistor I'd be here all night, it took stages over 18 months. The drop in replacements aren't good - I ended up taking the led's out and soldering them, reason being they kept going out and or flickering, sometimes in tune to the music - not good when you have to dive into the dash to fix one. The only answer is hard wired then it's fit and forget.

 

The LEDs have to have some sort of ballast resistor? Is that because they were too bright without, or would they burn up without? Thx.

 

Yep, the drop in led's have them already installed. If you fitted just the led's they wouldn't last long...

If you fancy doing this you need a decent soldering iron and lots of patience.

I got my inspiration from this thread, it explains all.
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...dimming-38712/

also installed
door handle back lights
footwell lights
roof console
rear map/courtesy
door switches
puddle lights
rear brake light
glove box
The only ones I left where the vanity mirror lights as led's are too bright, if the lady want's to check her lipstick, the oem bulbs are kinder on her complexion!

 

This is awesome what bulbs are used in the cluster that are the smaller bulbs. I know that 4 bulbs are the 194 what are the smaller ones ? If you can, can you give all the bulb types you used to complete this project. That would be great.