[rickdogg]

A heads up for gen 5 owners. The 2 HVAC bulbs ARE NOT the 5mm NE05 found on superbrightled.com. It was a lot larger than the OEM bulbs. I just ordered both the 4mm and 3mm just to see which one is correct. I will update that information when I install them.

Also, I went ahead and checked the bulbs for the knobs and they all already have LED's from the factory.

 

[rickdogg]

Update:

The bulbs are the 4mm ones.

 

[sn1cko]

Just to add to the info...
Here are some pics of when I tackled the HVAC 4 years ago

It'll be tough to make the dials light up evenly with an LED given the way light is dispersed through this OEM contraption.

However, you can do something about the buttons...

I ultimatley put the gen5.5 bezels around the HVAC with the regular incandescent bulbs (with the blue plastic base), and the buttons are now lit with white LEDs.
That radio is long gone. The blue LEDs were beautiful and richer than these pics depict, but then I went for the screen and redid the blue to all white...the radio didn't work after that I probably should've just stuck with the blue and proceeded with putting blue LEDs behind the screen. It was a lot of soldering/unsoldering I didn't want to do anymore.

Went for the window switch too:

 

[JustAnotherAsian]

I ultimatley put the gen5.5 bezels around the HVAC with the regular incandescent bulbs (with the blue plastic base), and the buttons are now lit with white LEDs.
That radio is long gone. The blue LEDs were beautiful and richer than these pics depict, but then I went for the screen and redid the blue to all white...the radio didn't work after that I probably should've just stuck with the blue and proceeded with putting blue LEDs behind the screen. It was a lot of soldering/unsoldering I didn't want to do anymore.

mucho thanks for sharing! i poked around, and found that white leds weren't going to cut it, so i figured i would just color-match my blue illuminated pioneer deck with blue-tinted bezels. where did you find the gen 5.5 bezels by itself? parted control panel from junkyard?

 

[sn1cko]

mucho thanks for sharing! i poked around, and found that white leds weren't going to cut it, so i figured i would just color-match my blue illuminated pioneer deck with blue-tinted bezels. where did you find the gen 5.5 bezels by itself? parted control panel from junkyard?

I'm not sure you could tint the bezels. I came to this issue when I wanted to make them white:

You would have to get a needle to scrape away the green, and there's no groove or cutout to simply scrape the green only. That is, you'll be scraping the black (which you see from the front) away as well. So I ended up leaving these bezels alone. I know some cardomain user changed the color of his gen5/5.5 bezels somehow, but I didn't pursue it further.

I didn't get the gen5.5 bezels alone, I bought the climate control on Ebay for about $25 (total) at the time. I planned to tear it apart to figure out what the LEDs looked like behind the buttons (ended up not being too involved), and in the process swapped the bezels into my control unit.

 

[rickdogg]

Nice Sn1cko. Did you ever mess with the gauge cluster to match the rest?

 

[sn1cko]

Nice Sn1cko. Did you ever mess with the gauge cluster to match the rest?

No, I didn't have enough time to play with the cluster so that's been untouched :disappoin I remember there were a lot of threads inquiring about whether it was possible to fit the gen5.5 clusters into the gen5, but that's a negative.

 

[canderton01]

would changing the bulbs of the auto HVAC unit be similar to this? I've got an '02 XLE and 3 of the buttons on the unit don't light up anymore...

 

[Asteroid]

If the lights have gone then yeah it probably uses the same type of lamps (as LED don't usually fail).

I'll be tackling my Aus-spec manual hvac lights soon, will add some pics when it's done (as it's a different setup).

 

[sn1cko]

would changing the bulbs of the auto HVAC unit be similar to this? I've got an '02 XLE and 3 of the buttons on the unit don't light up anymore...

Not sure what you mean by 3 buttons not lighting up anymore, but you're in luck:thumbsup: One of my LEDs died, so I took apart everything to change it - I come across and access every bulb and LED in the gen5/5.5 HVAC in the next post.

 

[sn1cko]

Every bulb/LED in the Gen5/5.5 HVAC

Even more info :thumbsup: to replace or modifiy the bulbs and/or LEDs, here goes:

(2 blue circles here are the bases of the 2 incandescent bulbs which illuminate the bezels)

At this point, with the most recent 3 screws removed from the circuit board, you use your fingers to gently and evenly tug the circuit board straight out; The only thing retaining the board are the "A/C" and Fan Mode buttons from the front, they snap into their respective sockets.

Polarities indicated for the "A/C" button LEDs; note: the 5mm defroster button polarity is in a different orientation.

Dead LED in question

Removed dead LED with soldering iron; now place new LED through circuit board.

Bend the LED pins to hold the LED in place.
A dab of solder to connect the LED; you probably will not need more solder, because the residual solder left behind on the circuit board can be worked with the soldering iron to contact the LED terminals.
Clip the excess LED terminal pins and you're ready to reverse the steps to put everything back together.

All better!

While I was at it, I changed the red alarm LED to blue.
My white LED on the "Auto" window switch also died, so I replaced it with a blue LED too:thumbsup:

 

[bandit]

Nicely done. I have added your tutorial to the LED master list.

 

[canderton01]

Not sure what you mean by 3 buttons not lighting up anymore, but you're in luck:thumbsup: One of my LEDs died, so I took apart everything to change it - I come across and access every bulb and LED in the gen5/5.5 HVAC in the next post.

I lied, it was actually 2 buttons. Here is a pic:

[/IMG]

As you can see the air and bi-level lights are out. I was just wondering how similar to this it would be to replace them.

 

[sn1cko]

I lied, it was actually 2 buttons. Here is a pic:
As you can see the air and bi-level lights are out. I was just wondering how similar to this it would be to replace them.

Hmmm...I'm going to guess this would not be very similar to the manual HVAC controls. If the buttons are illuminated the same way the radio buttons are, then it looks like you'd be dealing with smd 1206 LEDs.

Those smd 1206 LEDs look like:
http://www.toyotanation.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1100440&postcount=44

 

[JustAnotherAsian]

I'm not sure you could tint the bezels. I came to this issue when I wanted to make them white:

You would have to get a needle to scrape away the green, and there's no groove or cutout to simply scrape the green only. That is, you'll be scraping the black (which you see from the front) away as well. So I ended up leaving these bezels alone. I know some cardomain user changed the color of his gen5/5.5 bezels somehow, but I didn't pursue it further.

I didn't get the gen5.5 bezels alone, I bought the climate control on Ebay for about $25 (total) at the time. I planned to tear it apart to figure out what the LEDs looked like behind the buttons (ended up not being too involved), and in the process swapped the bezels into my control unit.

^ah yes. that's exactly what i was talking about actually. i found out that there was no way to change the color of the bezels other than tinting it (or getting se bezels), and i figured blueish/turquoise was the easiest color to achieve over the green with some coats of transparent blue (might darken, but oh well). i'm definitely not confident scraping the green off these bezels... yet.

but thanks for the heads up on the source- ebay! duh! :lol:

 

[sn1cko]

Update:
The bulbs are the 4mm ones.

Thanks for determining the LED equivalent!
Do you have pictures showing how well and/or evenly the NE04 (NeoWedge series LED Lamp) illuminates the HVAC dials? If not, could you describe it relative to the stock bulb?
My stock bulbs have been intermittent, so I'm looking to replace those too.

Nicely done. I have added your tutorial to the LED master list.

Thanks! The master list is incredibly useful and time- (and money-) saving. It also reminded me to go after my glove box bulb.

 

[rickdogg]

Thanks for determining the LED equivalent!
Do you have pictures showing how well and/or evenly the NE04 (NeoWedge series LED Lamp) illuminates the HVAC dials? If not, could you describe it relative to the stock bulb?
My stock bulbs have been intermittent, so I'm looking to replace those too.

NP. I'm still in Japan right now, but I can snap a pic for you once I get back in the US. IMO, the NEO4 bulbs do not evenly distribute light. However, it looks pretty being able to change up the bulb color. I just want to match the OEM gauge cluster before going full blown on the interior LED's though.

 

[olympicgold]

I lied, it was actually 2 buttons. Here is a pic:

[/IMG]

As you can see the air and bi-level lights are out. I was just wondering how similar to this it would be to replace them.

I have AC like this one and need to change out bulbs..is there DIY written up on this already? Because it looks like most of you guys have manual AC controls

 

[shots76]

question for gen 5s... is it normal for the temp control(middle dial) part where it says "MAX A/C USE <symbol>" to not light up?

 

[kaashifv]

Ok, so the Gen 5 cluster has the Neo4 Lights. Can anyone confirm for the Gen6?

Here is the image:
http://img260.imageshack.us/img260/9426/img0292r.jpg

http://img685.imageshack.us/img685/7022/img0293q.jpg