Gear surround LED colour change

[cornishtaz]

For anyone that wishes to change the colour of the SMD LED in the gear surround.

Tools required
Stubby Philips s/driver
Small flat blade s/driver
Fine tip soldering iron
Qty 2 4040 smd led from top-quality-tools | eBay

Start by removing the following parts. 1. Rubber mat 2. Plastic cover 3. Gear gaiter


I removed the gear gaiter completely by pushing in the 2 black tabs and lifting the blue collar. You can remove the 2 screws holding the centre console surround


Then carefully remove the centre console surround, there are several clips and a small amount of force is required. This pic shows some of the clips


Then remove the AUX/USB unit, this has a plastic clip on each side and requires a small careful bit of force( I did this to make access easier to the elec connector)


Disconnect the elec connector(This is showing the connector from non EPB models)


I removed the 2 metal screw clips to avoid damage to the led housing tube. Unclip the qty5 led housing tube clips


Slide the LED housing tube forward slightly to de-locate from front mount point


This is the elec connector form EPB models


Unclip qty 10 clips to separate the clear tube from the black plastic


This shows to 2 parts seperated


To get access to the LED PCB unclip qty 3 clips on each end of the cabling





This shows the LED PCB inside the housing


This is the PCB removed.


De-solder the LED and replace with new LED and rebuild everything in reverse.

The finished item showing it being bench tested and installed into the car



Min brightness


Max brightness


Interior light off


Interior light on

[Rusty2009]

Nice one mate I've ordered the LED already going try a two colour option.

[cornishtaz]

Nice one mate I've ordered the LED already going try a two colour option.

I've tried to be as through as I can to make it easy for other people

Sounds good mate look forward to the pics

[tucpal]

Very well done and a very good idea think i will be going for blue

[cornishtaz]

Pics of finished project added to 1st post

[Rusty2009]

That looks really good mate.

[tucpal]

i like it even better now got to get this done i will have a practice on my old switch and see how i get on

[Rusty2009]

Baz where is the best place to put the soldering iron mate?

You can't go from the bottom and it looks impossible to get in from the side only other place is on the metal contacts of the LED.

[cornishtaz]

You can desolder/solder from the metal led contact just use a thin modeling knife blade to raise the led when desoldering. Retin pcb contacts prior to install of new led

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[KieronDSFX]

This Looks Amazing!! Seriously Comtemplating this, however, I would want too change the backlighting of the dash if I did this lol, I like matching themes

[cornishtaz]

The rest is a wip and more how to will be added

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[tucpal]

really liking this baz so just ordered the SMD.S

and i really want the blue around the clocks also

[Gatch]

the ambient also has red lights behind the door handles, is this something to follow?

[cornishtaz]

the ambient also has red lights behind the door handles, is this something to follow?

Yes mate its on its way, but seeing as Vaux used a strange led the board has to modified to accept a more common led

[Nemo]

Anyone else managed to change the colour of the door card LED?

[cornishtaz]

Yep easy to do done about a dozen of em

[Rusty2009]

I got Baz to do mine as you need a jumper wire iirc


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[Nemo]

Nah you don't need one @Rusty2009



When you remove the LED that's originally there you'll see 6 squares for where it was sat. Scratch the black off of the board next to the right to expose the copper like so;


Then skip the first squares on the left, add the LED to the middle squares and then have it sat on the copper you just scratched off and solder it to that.



The LED doesn't actually touch any of the original squares except for the middle 2

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The first and last pic show two different methods. First pic has 2x 0805 attached and the other has a plcc-2 on it

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[cornishtaz]

What led did you use

[Nemo]

It was done two different ways to test the brightness and it looked like 2x 0805 was brighter

[cornishtaz]

I use a standard plcc2

[Nemo]

Sorry that's what I meant, I'll edit it

[cornishtaz]

Did both your 805s work?

[Nemo]

Yeah they both do, it's the method I went with too

[cornishtaz]

Strange as the middle connection on the edge furthest from the wires isn't connected to anything

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