I've been able to successfully swap the LEDs for the A/C button and the cigarette light. I have a GEN4 Camry and this is what the DIY is based on.
It is not the easiest task, soley because the leds have to be short enough, and cannot be blocking certain things. The A/C button took me two days because the first time I did it, I had it too long and the button would not click. The only recommendation I have for you is to know how to solder...even though it's not too hard, it can get frustrating since it's small, and has to be
SHORT.
So what you need:
-Soldering iron / solder
-Small flathead screwdriver
-3mm LED with resistors
-PATIENCE
Alright, let's start with the
A/C button. The first half is basically removing the AC switch from the center console. If you already know how to do that, skip until the middle or so.
I assume you already got the radio trim off, but if not, just take a large flathead, and start prying around it, it will just push out.
Once that is said and done, disconnect the wires connecting to the cigarette lighter and it's light so you don't have to leave the trim hanging to the side. (Mine looks a little different because I have gorilla tape covering one of the plugs you gotta pull, I'll explain it later on)
First pull the one pointing to the yellow arrow, it's underneath the white plug. That one just pulls out.
The white one has a clip underneath it. Put it in with your finger and then pull the white one out. Set the trim to the side as you'll be needing it for the cigarette lighter LED.
Now back to the HVAC unit, remove the knobs controlling the fan speed and temperature by just pulling out (towards you), they come out easy.
The air vent changer head (??) has to be pulled out as well:
I recommend some gripped pliers as it's secured pretty well.
Once that is done, you can unscrew the 4 screws holding in the unit (red circles) and there may have been two screws underneath the control knobs you pulled (yellow circles).
Now, once you can move it, look at the top of the unit, there are two clips you have to pry up with your finger.
Now that you can move the black plastic face of this unit, lift it up like this:
Underneath the AC section is another clip, that you should pry downwards in order to remove it from the black plastic face.
Now remove the harness from the AC (there's a small white clip on it)
Now we get to the good stuff.
This next part can be done two ways. I chose the easier way since it doesn't really affect performance of the piece. There are 4 clips on each side that need to be pushed in, if you can push them in and pull on the button at the same time, that's great. But I found that pretty hard to do with two hands. Instead, I pried up / broke the pieces in front of those 4 clips so the insides just slide out by pulling the AC button. Breaking/prying up on the plastic in front of the clips does not affect it, as it is still pretty tight.
Here's two of the clips:
Here's one of the clips on the side, there's the same clip on the opposite side:
The red/blue circles refer to the clips, while the yellow arrows refer to the plastic you pry up if you choose the easier way lol.
Be careful as you pull it out, there is an orange rubber piece and a very small 'staple looking spring' that if you lose, the spring action of the A/C won't work. I don't have a picture of just the spring or the rubber piece, but here's a basic sketch.
Set them aside as you won't really need it for a while, make sure you don't lose them. I have a picture that does show how you put the spring back in place later on.
Now, when you flip it over, you can see the motherboard, the led etc. I do not have a picture, but you can basically just pick up the motherboard, but you may need to bend the sides of the plastic housing.
Now once you remove the mobo, there are two ways you could also set up your LED. Remove the old solder, or just cut the old LED off and use the metal legs from that. I chose the latter method. Make sure you look inside the LED to find out which side is positive and which is negative. You can see that inside the LED are two little metal pieces, one is a lot smaller than the other. The smaller one is POSITIVE, while the bigger one is NEGATIVE. Make sure your new leds matches up to the right side of the old led.
Here's an example:
red is pos and black is neg
This is how the motherboard looks like. Ignore how I set up my new LED/Resistor because it is wrong (the button won't click this way, this is the first time I attempted to solder in the new led):
I don't have a picture of how to correctly set it up but basically, it should look similar to this:
*sorry for the sketches, at the time of doing this, I didn't think about taking a picture of every little thing and actually making a DIY*
The LED is the gray while the resistor is the blue. Make sure if you're looking at the mobo at a top down view, the resistor is on the right side, or opposite of the HOLE. If you put it on the other side, the resistor will not fit. The resistor has to be soldered to the negative.
There are two things you have to make sure you do in order for your button to not stop clicking.
1) Make sure the resistor has room.
Don't make the resistor's metal legs short. But make sure to make the LED legs short.
2) Inside the black plastic housing that was holding the motherboard, it looks like this (sketch):
The part that is labeled LED is where the mobo and it's LED slips in. Now, behind the LED is a plastic wall that is labeled 'BREAK', well you need to either break that small plastic wall with clippers, or you could do what I did and melt it with the soldering iron. I found out that if you don't melt/break that wall, when you click the A/C button in, it will rub against the metal from the resistor, and it will not click correctly. I'm sure there's another way but it seems to have worked for me. You just have to mess around with it, and make sure it clicks and does not get stuck when you push it in.
When you are done soldering your new LED, basically you slide the motherboard in, and push down while prying the sides of the plastic housing, and it should fit. Don't try and force it in as you may damage the motherboard.
Best thing to do right now is to make sure your A/C button clicks properly right now or else you'll have a problem later on. To do this:
Flip over the plastic housing once your mobo is in, and get your staple spring and orange piece ready.
In this picture (I'd open it in another tab so you can see it at the true resolution
The blue arrow points to where you place the orange rubber piece. As you may notice, the rubber piece has a small peg that fits in the hole on the housing. Do this last though. In front of the small hole is a little gap where half of the staple goes. The other half, should go where that yellow dot is.
DO NOT CLICK THE BUTTON YET. IF YOU DO, THE SPRING WILL JUMP UP, AND PROBABLY LAND SOMEWHERE YOU WILL NEVER FIND IT.
(this happened to me twice rofl, but I did find it...)
When you put the staple and the rubber piece back together, slide the plastic housing into the other housing that holds this one together. The 'other plastic housing' is used as a wall so the spring does not jump out. When you press the button, it should click again now. If it doesn't, take it all apart again and check to see what it might be rubbing on.
If it clicks, basically you can connect it to the harness in the car and make sure it lights up now lol. You're done with that.
---
Now it's time for the
cigarette lighter light.
*I recommend if you change this led, be aware there is a green plastic piece that may tint the color of your LED. My white led has a tint of green to it, but it's not too bad. I tried to remove this green plastic piece, it is impossible...*
Make sure you have disconnected the wiring harness' that connect to the radio trim. First step in this DIY or here again for reference:
You just pull the yellow one out, while the white one has a clip that you push in, then pull out the harness.
You should now have separated the trim from the wires.
Now, you should have this gray piece still on the trim:
You twist it like half of the other leds in your car to remove it.
You should then have separated that gray piece:
You see those clips (circled in red)? Pry them outwards (towards you). They are holding onto the contacts inside the gray base. When you have pryed the clips out enough...look inside the gray base. Those gold contacts can now be pushed out since the clips are no longer holding onto them. I used a small flathead to push them out.
Inside the gray base (mines still attached to the radio trim in this pic but you get the general idea)
I don't have many pictures to show for the cigarette lighter because it's kind of
straight forward. When you push the contacts out, it looks like this (sketch, sorry once again):
http://i.imgur.com/8JGwX.png
Left is old, right is new led and how it should look.
You can just cut off the old LED and basically solder the resistor to one contact, and then solder the led to the other contact and the resistor.
This time it does not matter what side is positive and which is negative because you can always just flip the harness that connects into the gray base around if it does not light the first time.
Now the problem with soldering a new LED into this is, it needs to be short, and if it's not short enough, it won't fit back into the radio trim, and won't twist and click in. I tried shortening as mine as possible and it still wouldn't fit. That explains why I taped it onto the radio trim instead of snapping it back in lol. You can just force it in so the led/resistor bend down but I decided not to risk the pos/neg touching and blowing a fuse.
To make sure it's short enough, when you solder the resistor to the contact, make sure that when you put that contact back in, that at least half of the resistor is hiding away in the gray base where the old bulb went in.
There isn't much more to be said, when you remove the contacts, you basically remove the old LED, solder the resistor and LED to the contacts, stick them back in, and pretty much put it all back together and make sure it works.
It's a really tight fit, make sure your solder joints are hard and good, you don't want them to break when you slide the contacts back into the gray base.
If you have any questions, post away, I tried to explain it as best as possible
.
This wouldn't have been possible without the help of Bolink. So thanks to him as well.
My end results:
A/C:
CIG:
DIY: A/C Button Light and Cigarette Light Swap
Linear Mode
