Talking of LEDs, are there LED replacements for standard instrument bulbs available? In an idle half hour at the weekend I took my bulbs out and coloured them with a blue permanent marker for the VW effect but TBH they are now a bit dim. I've seen LED warning lights/switch lights, but are there compatible LEDs to just swap out the standard filament bulbs in traditional instruments?

Ive bought them from ebay, the only issue I had was that LEDs dont have a very wide spread of light, where as a filiment bulb will generally emit evenly in all directions, this led to patchy light on the dials I had installed.

I have done this on a number of cars and the only LEDs that are suitable are the ones with a flat top - eBay is crawling with 'em. They disperse the light much more effectively but still tend to give 'hot spots' when compared to filament bulbs so they might not be suitable in some applications. They are more effective when they have more distance behind the glass/lense.

I've replaced my Dash bulbs on my m'bike with bright whites W5W (Sidelight) - flat/inverted top. It shines a lovely blue colour.

Steve

You need a diffuser (better than the 5mm plastic lid on a regular LED) to get a good shine. A perspex sphere with a matt finish on the outside drilled for the LED might work well if you can find such a thing.

ultra leds

LINK

They sell all sorts of leds in bulb holders to fit in std installations.

You can get leds in all different viewing angles so if you buy ones with a high degree of visibility it negates the need for diffusers, in some cases though it will still be a bit patchy, as stated above.

ATB
Stott

Take a look at multichip LED lamps. I've used BA-9 ones for industrial control panels. You will need smaller ones for your instruments, but I don't know what sizes are available.

if your gauges have white numbers, what about UV LEDs? thats what i'm gonna do