plasma glow gauge faces

[lga714]

yeah, it's called a 15 month old boy :p

I knew that was coming. Congrats on the boy.

Anyway, those gauges look great! I was following this thread back in October and was itching to get myself a set but I wanted to hold out for the M3 ones since I have the M3 cluster. I think I'll be ditching the M3 cluster because I hate the white gauges it came with and my oil temp gauge isn't working with my TMS oil temp kit. So it looks I'll be switching back to a stock cluster with plasma faces!

Can't wait to see them illuminated. Get on it!

[nando]

I got the backlight working, but something is blocking the top of the odometer (probably a wire). I also got the E36 needles to glow, not that brightly yet but I'm thinking I might add a couple small LEDs under the needles for an extra boost.

Here's some pics from my Android, maybe a real camera would capture the light better, but this is a good feel:



there are some minor flaws but overall I'm happy, it's a huge difference over what I had before - there was a 6w bulb on the right side, which is too hot, so it melted the orange lense and basically blocked 90% of the light. It was getting to the point of not being able to see anything at all..

[riverdale21]

Looks good. I agree the needles need to be a bit brighter but off to a great start.

[nando]

I think they are brighter in person - I figured the camera phone wouldn't capture it well. While I would like them a tad brighter, they are still brighter than the stock unlighted needles were.

[gearheadE30]

how did you go about illuminating the needles? that looks really good.

[nando]

They are e36 needles. I basically cut the holes in the faces where the needle passes through larger, the built in reflector does the rest.

Im going to try red led's next

[N2MYE30]

Im going to try red led's next

I think the all reds will be the way to go. The orange/yellow mph bugs me personally but nice diy.

[nando]

it's not really yellow - crappy pic I guess. It looks a lot more amber, actually with the stock backlighting it has a pretty neat red glow, like a nuke sub on high alert or something..

[NC325iC]

if they could get the alpina strip in there too... done deal

[Den_k321]

i like them alot, thinking of getting them too, and i asked the seller he said he can do 80 shipped... [but i asked him like 6 month ago..]

[Supadave]

Here is a vid Of mine.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/supa_dave/5543722246/

[riverdale21]

Looks good, Supadave.

Anyone know if the seller offers the oil temp gauge instead of economy meter?

[nando]

he was supposed to have E30 M3 gauges but I don't think they are available yet.

[JinormusJ]

Gonna bump this

For those that have done this; I'm assuming you deleted the two giant bulbs in the orange plastic housing in the cluster since they aren't needed anymore.

But if you did that, how did you guys get the needles to light up since they're on the same system? Do they light up by the light emitted from the plasma gauges? Anybody know how these would fare vs stock e30 needles?