Tidy. Stage 4. Installing RGB LEDs. — Toyota Paseo, 1.5 liter, 1999

Let me start by saying that I'm already tired of it. I did not expect that this is such a difficult and painstaking task. There is nowhere to retreat, we must finish ...

I will not describe meticulously, just list what is available at the moment and what has been done over the weekend.

1) Important elements overlapped with arrows, so the information background was redone.

Icons have become larger and changed their location.
2) The LEDs are masterfully laid on double-sided tape and glue, and in some places on a specially cut plastic substrate along the very bottom of the tidy.
The number of wires (they fit perfectly from the UTP5 "twisted pair" patch cord) is terrifying ...
3) The first photos. I didn’t bother with the quality, it’s still not the final ...

Some shades:

A serious flaw came out - you can’t see the arrows, because. they don't light up.
There were many solutions:
1) put white bulbs in standard cartridges so that they illuminate the arrows through the original light guides.
2) take a strip of red LEDs

1) Light bulbs - complete crap ... They illuminated all the scales for me with uneven areas and their "white-moon" light. Some crap turned out, I had to remove it.
2) Who said that you can not corrode the LED strip? =) Everything works, you just need to suffer a little.
But crap anyway. The soldering is very thin, the design is bulky. and most importantly, the red circles are visible through the backing...

The solution came a little later:
1) We take ordinary red LEDs.
2) We tint them with a film. This is necessary for pinpointing, otherwise the LED will illuminate the ENTIRE light guide with RED light. So it will only shine upwards and very accurately.

3) We make holes in the light guides with a soldering iron and a knife:

4) Glue the LEDs into these new seats:

My know-how: =) It is
possible and necessary to vary the slope of the LED and its location. So, for example, I absolutely do not need to STRONGLY highlight the entire range of rotation of the arrow.
The tachometer needle, for example, is poorly visible at idle, and with a set of revolutions, the arrow enters a highly lit zone and becomes VERY bright =)

That's it, I'm waiting until it all dries up, I'll send another pair of wires to the red LEDs and the final assembly ...