Dash Lighting. What colour is standard?

[Muad_dib77]

I recently took apart my dash to fit some dial rings.
As I'd be fairly annoyed that the dash light was very dim I figured that since I had everything out I might as well have a looksie at the bulbs.
to my surpirse all the main bulbs has those little 'condom' type hoods on that are intended to change the bulb color - but because they're useless they don't really work.

The 'condoms' were blue - so as a result I had an eerie greenish dim light in my dash.. after peeling all the 'condoms' off I now have bright yellow light instead. Which is nice.

After refitting my dash I noticed that my climate control box had green light in all the buttons - so I had to take this apart as well. To my joy I located two more of the before mentioned 'condoms'.

Now - because these 'condoms' were everywhere in the car - and they were quite difficult to get off I'm actually wondering if perhaps Mitsi inteded the light to be the greenish colour - of if some bloke in Japan though it was a sh1t hot idea to install the 'condom' colored light thoughout the car?

Only just noticed on the way to work this morning that my Volt meter and the window buttons have the same greenish light - which can only mean one thing... There are 'condoms' to be found in the buttons and the volt meter as well.

Any thoughts?

[CJ]

So how many 'condoms' in total did you take out? Remember that they're only designed to be used once

CJ

[Muad_dib77]

I knew that was a 'bad' word.Hee

I took out four from the speedo cluster & two from the climate-control-box-yokebob.

that tots out at 6.

Am considering buying a pile of leds & resistors.

[gtoirl]

I know all the bulbs in my car have orange little condoms so it is a standard Mitsubishi thing to do, although blue sounds like it would be an after market joby. LEDs can be a bad choice due to there low angle of visibility. I have tried putting a couple of LEDs in place of a couple of bulbs in my car but it didn’t really work out, I’m currently waiting on bulbs to do the job right.

[CJ]

although blue sounds like it would be an after market joby.

The blue plastic cover is actually standard, its designed to make the light less yellow and more white apparently.

I’m currently waiting on bulbs to do the job right.

Out of interest Adam, have you sourced the correct bulbs, if so, where from?

CJ

[gtoirl]

I ordered a few from maplin, but it's been about 3 weeks now, think they lost my order. I'll let you know when/if I get them, but they look ok in the pictures. As I said I’ve already tried LEDs but they didn't really work. I'll take some photos when I get it sorted.

I feel a before, after LEDs, and finally working photo shoot coming on.

Currently I’m doing some practice runs on the buttons by the gear stick but the real problem is a blown bulb in the aircon unit. But that's a whole lot of dismantling to change.

[CJ]

I ordered a few from maplin, but it's been about 3 weeks now, think they lost my order.

I read a report of someone on the UK FTO Owners club forum using the maplin bulbs and they ended up taking them out, apparently they're quite dim.

Agreed on the LED front, if you can get your hands on wide angle LEDs, they should do the job.

CJ

[gtoirl]

I got relativity wide angle (60 degree) LEDs but some of the bulbs are actually mounted sideways to the way the light is meant to shine, wasn't in the mood of redesigning the whole dash.

The ones I ordered from maplin are meant to be bright, but I’ll wait and see, or not as the case my be

[Muad_dib77]

The light is quite yellow now that the "condoms" are off - but atleast it's bright.

GTOirl - please let's know what the verdict on the maplins bulbs are - I need to change the two in my clock.

The LEDs apparently are tricky to get right.
If I was to get 60degree ones - standard brightness - they wouldn't be bright enough to be practical.
The extra bright ones are too bright, thus causing "light spots". I was thinking that perhaps a small "matte but still see thru'ish" plastic disc in front of the LED might solve the issue.

But hey - if the bulbs from maplin work, then that's a much easier route to take, who REALLY wants to spend an entire evening soldering reistors to LEDs - and then another soldering directly onto the print on the dash instruments?

[gtoirl]

Well called into Maplin and they have none in stock, not even in the uk warehouse, so I'm going to have to wait a while longer.

[Muad_dib77]

GAH!

I got that once when I wanted to buy a remote controlled car.. Had to wait 3 weeks for a container to arrive from somewhere far away.

Remote controlled car is now sitting in attic...