I have, as I have mentioned elsewhere, a tendency to leave my indicators flashing. I find their positioning on the dashboard not obvious, and they are certainly not bright, especially on sunny days. So the plan was to install repeaters, somewhat brighter than the original arrows, and closer to my line of sight.

In this thread I describe the repeaters, and the problems encountered and solved when adding them. The repeaters chosen were 3mm green LEDs; the ones I used were transparent when off, and needed a current-limiting resistor to be wired in series with them so they won't blow up with 12V. I used bidirectional ones (from a model shop) so no problems with polarity.





This is one of the LEDs, soldered on to the wires. One (of the eventual two) lengths of heat shrink provide electrical insulation.

You could now, in theory, simply drill a 3mm hole through the black front of anywhere on the dashboard panel, and through the perspex, and merely insert the LED. It will look horrible, if you do, because you'll end up with a badly fitting lamp which will always glow because the transparent perspex behind the front of the dash will carry light to the led. Also, you are likely to see a 'rim' of yellow light around each led. So it has to be protected.

I cut a small length of heatshrink and shrunk it around the body of the LED, leaving only a small dome exposed:




This was my first attempt. The later, final attempts used slightly longer heat shrink around the led - no gaps!

The final stage of preparing the LED was to give a quick spray over the dome with matt black paint, just heavy enough to look black, but light enough so that the light would shine through.

Deciding where to put the LEDs was a bit of a conundrum. I originally decided upon the space by the computer display, but in the end felt it was not quite what I wanted. It was important not to interfere with any of the dial markings - I did rather like the idea of putting them within the 0 of 50 and 120, but couldn't see how, safely, do do it.

Drilling the holes

The usual major instrument cluster warning: Have the battery earth disconnected whenever connecting or disconnecting the two (both black, or one black one yellow) connecters to the cluster.

We then come to the drilling of the holes - straightforward, actually, but needs great care.

Having experimented on some scrap (you'll find it really useful if you have a little spare dashboard available, major or minor, to practise drilling on), I placed the dial unit onto its plastic frame (gives a stable, level surface). I settled upon a 2mm diameter hole in the front of the dash, measured carefully and, with a new, sharp drill made those initial holes by drilling from the front, the black side. If you did decide to drill from the back you will cause the front to raise up where the drill bites. You need to drill slowly, without too much pressure, and I think it inadvisable to use a hand-held drill. However, in order to fit the led, the hole must be enlarged from the inside, so the dial front needs to be turned over.

Warning! Don't be tempted to use a larger drill to make this housing. It will probably simply grab and go straight through, so you'll end up with a larger hole than you want!

I found a conical file for my drill worked perfectly. You need to be really careful with the depth, though, since you want to achieve two things: to be able to put place the led's so they seat well, and are not recessed, and also to avoid any 'rim' of clear plastic at the front end of the unit - that rim might transfer unwanted light.

So slow drilling,with a lot of care, and perhaps a magnifying glass. I did notice that at exactly the right point a small amount of black was transferred onto the conical file. The final step is to check that the leds work before assembling, then to push each led into its hole and glue it in. I used my favourite substance: hot glue, because it sets quickly and can be removed if need be. But you might find it will cook the led, so be sparing with it.

This is what it looked like:





The dome of each resistor only slightly protrudes, and I made sure there was no danger of catching against the needle. In 'real life' the cut edges to the holes are not visible.


Wiring and resistor

Wires fit comfortably at the centre, as shown.





I used the same coloured wires for each side - being bidirectional, I did not need to worry about polarity. Each wire was connected to the relevant indicator lamp, as shown. The black heat shrink protects the connectors, Each side has a long section of heat shrink - this covers the 1 kilohm resistor needed to protect the LED.

The end result
Reinstalled within the binnacle:








The final result - shown during the ignition on start-up sequence. Within that picture is my built-in parrot, by the way.

This would, of course, work on the major or minor instrument clusters, for other kinds of warning lights, and with different colours. But the positioning of the leds is significant, as you might find some reduction in brightness of symbols, because the light flow to them is interrupted. In my case, the 70 and 120 mph lettering is slightly dimmer than the others, but only noticeable at maximum dashboard brightness and when I am feeling nit-picky.

I hope you have found this to be of interest.

 

Nice, while I don't normally have an issue leaving my turn signals on I do have an issue with knowing if they are on. I'm hearing inpaired and can't hear the sounder. Like you I find the stock indicators somewhat hard to see.