Reply to "Gauge led bulbs"

Here is the response I receive back from Protizmo:

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Howdy, Steve.

I’d suggest one of these options:

1. Just orient the AILD-1 such that the projected light cone from the LED is aimed where it won’t be noticeable.
2. Tape over the LED. Black electric tape to eliminate the blue light completely. Opaque tape if you just want to dim it down a bit.
3. A switch would be fine. You could disconnect one of the leads to R1 (the resistor to the right of the blud LED (LED1) and put the switch in series with that resistor.
4. If you just want to disable the blue LED, but still re-enable it without too much difficulty, you could just clip the exposed lead on R1 (or de-solder one of its leads). To re-enable it, you could just re-solder the lead.
5. If you just want the blue LED dimmer than it currently is, you could replace resistor R1 with a resistor with a higher resistance value. I’m away from where I can to my design documents right now, but I could recommend some alternative values is you’re interested in pursuing this option.

Option 2 is crude, but effective and expedient.  I’d choose option 1 or 2 on my own car if the blue light were objectionable (and it isn’t; on my ’90 Porsche 928S4, it’s not even noticeable given the mounting location near the steering column close to where the RDK control unit used to be before I removed it).

If you do modify the circuitry at all, I’d recommend leaving a label on the unit somewhere so that there’s a record of the modification. You (or a future owner) would probably appreciate that later.


Hope that helps. Don’t hesitate to contact me with further questions or comments.

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Ed Scherer
Protizmo, LLC"
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My plan is to open up the unit and check the resistor value as stated in option 5. I have a decade box that will allow me to change the resistance and determine what is best for me. If I wasn't so anal simply taping over it would work too!

Steve