For those of you who have swapped out the stock incandescent bulbs for LEDs in the gauge cluster, did you use white (warm, cool etc.) for all or did you use any colors like red for oil, amber for turns, etc.? If you used white, did the presumably brighter LED wash out the color of the indicator bezel? If you used any colored LEDs, what was the result?

As long as we're on the subject, what type of LEDS did you use? A cluster, SMDs, COB? Any opinion or suggestions regarding LED type?

 

If you order from the UK ebay seller doing LED sets for our bikes you will get a mix of white and colored that match the bezel colors If you order the white kit. I ordered white, red and blue and mixed and matched untill I found what i liked best...............then totaled the bike...
http://www.ebay.com/itm/HONDA-VTR100...9VAFn4&vxp=mtr


The LEDs were a nice addition to my 98 dash...and mostly useless on the later model 2001.
The later year dash uses a red colored plastic gauge face...using a brighter LED behind it does nothing for improving visibility of the backgound black and illuminated "red" numbers and lines at night or at least for me and my eyes it did not help.
At night the speedo was all but unreadable for me. ..small digits and Red on black....BUT, a new Mod just completed fixed that.. I installed a silicon encased top lighted LED strip under the dash plastic cover, on top of the gauge face. Added a dimmer switch to control the amount of light added..And POOF...Front lighted gauge face that can be seen clearly at night.

 

I have an 01 that i have done it helps make what you already have pop a bit more ill post a pic next week as im soon to be out of cel coverage for the next few days.

 

 

Lol.. I knew that was coming...... Was in a hotel on business trip teaching out of town when I typed that.

I don't have any pics of the install, but will post some of the LEDs before install and the set up, plus lighted pics tonight when I get home from class

 

You can give me all the excuses you want, I still don't see any pics today.

 

As I Have been thinking about doing the same thing, here's a thought. In the case of white bulbs, depending on the lumen output of the LED replacement bulb, you may not get a brighter result where a white bulb is illuminating one of the colored indicator bezels. In this case it would be better to use a colored LED that is the same as that of the indicator.

 

Certainly, that is a consideration, xeris. I think I'm more concerned about going too bright, though. I am paying attention to the claimed lumen output of the bulbs I'm considering when that spec is stated. My guess is any LED option is going to be brighter than the stock bulbs. I want nice clear indications, but I don't want a glaring high beam light in my peripheral vision at night, either. I already get that with almost every car I drive.


After reading Erik's post above and reading one or two things elsewhere online, I'm planning on using colored bulbs for the turns, oil, etc. I've read that the matching color LEDs offer a more saturated color indication through the bezels. Or something like that.

 

https://www.superhawkforum.com/forum...68/#post394849

Made a seperate thread for the MOD

 

Hey Guys see attached images of LED'S installed i have RED LED'd where the red clock is and white led's behind the LCD ill try to find standard image too


CLUSTER LED IMAGES

 

Can not see the image

 

Sorrrrry Fixed :P

 

Yes, nice..
Making the gauge face more red with back lighting is very doable as you found.
If only making it more visible were as easy.

 

Here are the results of my change to LED's in the gauge cluster. First a shout out to Crankenfine for the free LED's. I only replaced the bulbs that illuminate the clock faces and the turn indicators. The results are much improved visibility. Some of the improvement was due to a pair of the old bulbs being burned out. The LED's are much brighter than stock and based on the intensity of the turn indicators, I didn't replace the other bulbs. I felt it was unnecessary to have the other indicators that bright. Also because of the color and intensity of the LED's output and the amber bezel of the turn indicators, the resulting color has a strong greenish tint. This is a good reason to either match the LED color to the location and/or a warm white color. I may change out the turn indicators for amber. That said I think having the turns that bright will help me notice having forgot to cancel the turns.