Refractor LED 194 Bulbs | Page 2 | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

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Refractor LED 194 Bulbs

A while back I put an LED in place of the headlight switch bulb (the one that lights the selector positions) I got tired of the $12 bulb burning out every 2 months or so.

After 5 years and countless bright/dim it's still lit and dims as well as the incandescent bulbs. The nice thing is the '95s have blue tint to the dash stock and I have a blue LED in there, that's a much richer color and not as glaring as the incand.s were.
 



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Sylvania site shows these with 194's too:

Ash tray (Don't have one)
Glove box (Too dim - tried it)
Instrument-general (15 to 18 - 161's, see below and 6 - 194's)

And these, that turned out to be 161's IRL:
Check engine indicator
Hi-beam indicator
Seat belt indicator
Brake warning
Directional signal indicators
 






I'll resurrect this one for a question...

How does the dimmer interact with the LEDs? Is that going to present an issue? I normally leave mine at full brightness, but I don't want to kill the bulbs and have to pull the gauge cluster again by browning them out or something...

Exactly how much dimmer are the LEDs than actual bulbs?

Also, I've found a ton of LEDs on eBay, is there a specific brand I should be going for, or are they all pretty much equal quality...

The LEDs will dim just like a normal bulb will dim, It has no effect on the lifespan of the LEDs.

I would say the LEDs I used are about 80% as bright as the old bulbs were.
 






any chance that someone has tried changing the green color on the spedo i was really wondering if it was a green film like that in the climate control
 






any chance that someone has tried changing the green color on the spedo i was really wondering if it was a green film like that in the climate control

My year has the green film for color, so if you changed the color of the bulbs the needles would change, but the numbers will stay green or something of that nature. But I know some years had the color come from green covers on the bulbs, so you could change those to any color you like.

P.S. I have no idea what years are which.
 






you have a good point i think the higher years have the film what year is yours?
 












yea i believe it was 98 and up that stared with green film the older ones used fiber optics and green rubber covers over the bulbs
 






Light change...how?

I have a 96 limited. I would like to change out the light bulbs behind my gauge cluster with LED bulbs. I think they look really great in the cars, and more than half of my cluster is out. I have no clue how to get to the bulbs though. Is there a site where I can go to get a diagram of how to change them? Or..can you tell me how. Thank you!!!
 






search on ebay for "inverted wedge 194" or if you are buying many led's you can just use a bulk site like besthongkong.com
 






i think i have a walkthrough on it with pictures if you have a pep boys near you i reccomend geting the led wedges there i will up load it on here later tomorrow
 






There's a web site www.superbriteleds.com that have what i feel is almost any led bulb replacement and power related solution you should need. not sure how there prices will compare but they seem to have a very informative site.
 






There's a web site www.superbriteleds.com that have what i feel is almost any led bulb replacement and power related solution you should need. not sure how there prices will compare but they seem to have a very informative site.

Yes that is a very good website for finding plug and play LEDs.

And

Welcome to the Forum!
 






The LED's can only go in one way (polarized), so I had it all figured out, installed the "wedge" 194 bulbs and Bingo! ...nothing...

Not a single one lit.

Turned one 180* (just the holder) and Ta-Da! Light. So now all 6 work and it is actually brighter than before - that's because I had 3 burnt out bulbs! It is not as bright, if all 6 bulbs actually worked, but I like the looks of it soooooo much better. Dimmer works 100%. The guages are greener and the pointers have a slight blue tint - much easier on the eyes!

There are 6 guage lights total, and don't think about using this type of bulb in the glovebox - too dim.

Now I need some 161 LED's to finish it off. The "Anti-Theft" is already an LED (Polarized red holder only goes in one way and is resistor dropped to +5v). There are 18 total 161's! Not all are used (15 for me since it is 2WD, with no active suspension).
 






Be careful, I don't know if replacing the Indicator bulbs is a good idea. When I was having problems with my airbag and the light was blinking, I removed the bulb. When I did this the chime started going off just like the blinking light, since the LEDs hardly dray any power the computer might think there is a bulb out and start chiming. I don't know though just thought Id pass on my thinking.
 






Airbag and CEL are both the same with the chiming. Must be a good bulb in place for those two. I decided to keep the 161's as bulbs since it is near impossible to find the proper T3.25 White LED's as needed. Everyone wants to sell 194/161'2 (T10's) that won't fit.
 






Alrighty, so I bought some of the inverted wedge 194 LED's off of eBay, and I LOVE the look of the dash, but I've got a couple of dark spots - around the 3000 RPM mark on the tachometer, and between 55mph and 75mph on the speedo.

Any ideas here? Is it possible a couple of LEDs aren't firing, or do I just need brighter LEDs?
 






two things i have not got to that mod yet if you could send pics that would be great............ however you probly got the wedges that cone to the middle if you did not gind them down then doit it will spread the light .... two the leds only work one way throughn positive and negitive so you can not screw them any way you have to match the polarities
 






FYI: just bexause the OEM cluster is green doesn't mean the film on the back is green.
In a 94-04 Mustang, the gauges are green. If you replace the Incandescent bulbs with WHITE LEDs, the gauges are blue.
The film on a stangs gauges is blue. It's the yellow tint of the incandescent bulbs PLUS the blue film that make the gauges green. Trust me, I've done it.
Just wanted to throw that out there.

I saw the pics of the green gauges on page 1 in the Ex, just wanted to post an FYI
 



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