Clock color change

[patrick_c]

Does anyone know if and how I can change the color of my factory clock in my Tundra.It's green now and I just changed all my lights to red.I kow it sounds silly but the red looks better with my truck and with my flame gauges.Thanks for the help.

[James800]

I would like to know also

[anmrivera]

Me too! Me too!! I am going with the blue look. I figured a siver and blue truck would look sharp!

[Johnny Law]

I just read up on this last night, club member networkguy had changed out his dash lights and stock HU lights to blue leds. I think the only thing that couldn't be changed was the clock. Club member gedenke also was in the process of doing this and I think he was running into the same problem.

[patrick_c]

It seems to me that everyone that has changed the lights out on thier dashes has this problem.Surely with all the great knowledge in this club and all the members,someone can figure this out.At least I really hope so.

[JustinH377]

Has anybody taken the clock apart to see what type of lights are in it? If they are leds you could replace the green led's with what ever color you wanted, you would just have to do some soldering.

[shelbix2020]

I say just disconnect the clock .. I personally dont need it, Ive got one on my HU thats easier to look at while driving.

[Rlockyer]

Originally Posted by JustinH377

Has anybody taken the clock apart to see what type of lights are in it? If they are leds you could replace the green led's with what ever color you wanted, you would just have to do some soldering.

Neon/flourescent... like the old desk calculators.
I'm wondering if a red filter wouldn't work... probably too dim during the day.

[Agent WD-40]

Depending on how things are wired back there you could probably put some LED number displays back there. They are easy to find in red. The picture below is what I'm talking about. I think to get that type of display to work you provide one power input and then ground the rest of the segment you want to light up. If the clock back there was oppostie (one ground, provide power to illuminate) you could wire a digital circuit chip to change the power to ground. With a bit of time and a multimeter this would be too bad.

[JnEsPappa]

I wonder what colored filter film would do? What color film would make green look like red or blue. Maybe contact a film manufacturer and ask about that.

[RockyMtnRay]

Originally Posted by JnEsPappa

I wonder what colored filter film would do? What color film would make green look like red or blue. Maybe contact a film manufacturer and ask about that.

A red or blue colored film would make the display black or nearly so...depending on the spectral cutoff in the film & thickness/density of the film, it would filter out all or nearly all of the light coming from the factory LEDs.

Reason: Unlike an incandescent source which produces light at nearly all visible frequencies from violet to red, a colored LED generates a fairly narrow spectrum of light...the green ones having nearly all of their output in the green/yellow frequencies. There's no or almost no light output in the blue or red frequencies. So if the filter film has a sharp spectral cutoff and doesn't let any green or yellow through, the display will be black since the LED generates little to no light in the red or blue frequencies. However, most films don't have such a sharp cutoff and would let a bit of green or yellow light through so the display would appear to be a very dim green or yellow.

Bottom line is if you want an LED style display in a color other than green, you have to use LEDs that produce the desired color. And that means either replacing the entire clock module or replacing the LED unit(s) in the factory clock with LED unit(s) that have the desired color and are a very close match in terms of voltages, current draw, pin location and a bunch of other Electrical Engineering issues. Replacing the entire clock module with one from a kit like this might be easier...though there's still a fair bit of fiddling needed to get the power supply voltages and probably the circuit boards to work right. No matter which way you go, it won't be a simple task and you do need to have a thorough understanding of solid state electronics.

[derone]

Agent WD-40 thats close.., but the best way would be to replace the 7-8segment LED display with the equivalent in red. Basically involves removing and disassembling the clock to obtain the model number of the LED display(s) like the pic you have, and look them up here http://www.mouser.com , you may have to leave off the suffix on the part number, that may be the color code. Then unsolder the green ones and replace with the red ones.
Not sure if color filters will work, you might be able to make it blue, definitely not red with a filter.
Doug

[Rlockyer]

Once again, the digits in the clock are not LED. They are a gas-discharge flourescent type, like those used in old desktop calculators. There are no discreet, individual segments that can be changed to LED modules... the entire display is a single-piece enclosed by glass in the front.

It may be possible to desolder the display and mount LED modules to a "daughtercard" with jumpers or printed traces to get the signals going to the correct location, but I think it would be easier to build a replacement clock.

The reason that I'm thinking that a filter MIGHT work is that the original lamps in the HVAC and instrument cluster are incandescent, but filtered through green covers. Still, the red on the tach and temperature control shine through just fine. Switching the lamps to red covers has the blue in the temp control almost going away (vs gone in the LED conversion).

Certainly easier than swapping the modules to LED... worth a try.