How to change power window switch lights

[Fonzie]

I'm intenting to change most of the illumination in my car to blue, rather than the ugly holden green, and given that one of my power window switch lights was out, i decided it was a good place to start. Cheers to Hozy for suggesting using 3mm LED's, they worked a treat. Also, before we begin, my apologies for the crappy picture quality.. Apparently my phone doesn't particularly like macro shots.

Supplies:
Soldering Iron
Fine Solder
Pliers
4 x 3mm LED's (Depending on their rating, you may need resistors too). 6 if you're doing rear switches too.
Steady hand
3 beers



First step is pull the switch out of the car, small flathead screwdriver does the trick.

There are a bunch of tabs across the bottom of the switch assembly, don't waste your time with these. You only actually need to pull the rocker part out. To do this, look side on at the switch. At the top (Under the lip part) there are two circular holes with tabs in them. To remove the rocker, push that tab in with a small screwdriver... Repeat on the other side. The rockers are a little difficult to get out.. Once you have one out, you'll understand and develop a method.

Be careful when you have the rocker out, there are two little brown squares that the switch pushes on, which push onto the mechanism. If you lose these, you'll need to make more or find more, and that's painful. Here's a relatively blurry pic of them... It's about 7mm square? They go in the parts highlighted in red in the below pic.


Now, soldering! This is what the original light and resistor look like.


Grab your pliers and rip it out. Side cutters could also be a good idea, just cut the wire at the two end points.

The next step I took was solder my LED and resistor together, then plug the switch assembly back into the car and figure out what the circuits polarity is. An LED, Light Emitting Diode, is believe it or not a diode. Meaning that current can only travel one way through it. Ergo, to save yourself soldering, find out which way it goes in first.

Now it's simply a matter of holding the diode soldered to the resistor in place, and reattaching it. It can be a bit fiddly... Have some patience. Try not to melt the switch assembly too much.


When you're done, It usually proves wise to plug the switch assembly back into the car once more to ensure that it does infact work.

Putting the rocker switch back on, make sure you put those brown things back in... And getting the rocker around the right way usually helps too.



Tips:
Make sure the LED doesn't sit up too far.. It'll cause problems for the switch.
I repeat, Don't lose those damn brown squares.
Measure and cut off most of the wire on the LED and resistor... Too much will get in the way.
When putting the rocker back on, make sure the LED is upright. This is why the rear passenger light is slightly dimmer in mine...
Don't solder too close to the diode or resistor, some of them react 'badly' to excessive heat.

Good luck.
Fonzie

[jujibelly]

I was going to do this mod as well got all the parts and what not then somehow threw the resistors in the bin lol.

Good write up. I would like to also emphasize that you do not lose the little brown squares and that you do not solder the leds higher than intended.

Paint your switches!

[Fonzie]

Yeah the switches are a bit worn, but i can't be stuffed masking up the little holes and the child lock button ,let alone pulling it all apart again.

[Trayner]

Looks good as man, im going to do this do mine now .

Just a few quick questions
Where did you get the 3mm blue diodes from , and what was there resistance
and what was the number on the resistors that you used ?

[HoldenManDan]

looks great dude, definately not as hard a task as i thought. Got 2 cars to do this in soon! One will be a nicer kind of green, the other will prob be pink or purple lol.

Thanks!

[Verynice]

Awesome fonzie. If i had power windows i would have done this. When i get a new car i WILL be doing this. Good work.

[Fonzie]

Looks good as man, im going to do this do mine now .

Just a few quick questions
Where did you get the 3mm blue diodes from , and what was there resistance
and what was the number on the resistors that you used ?

Fortunately the resistors came with the LED's, and I didn't have to waste my time figuring it out. This is the same lot that i actually bought. I have a like 20 left over though... How about a beer a peice, and I'll give you a hand? Let me know.

looks great dude, definately not as hard a task as i thought. Got 2 cars to do this in soon! One will be a nicer kind of green, the other will prob be pink or purple lol.

Yeah it was loads easier than i was expecting. I don't particularly like soldering in confined spaces (Albeit i had gotten used to it with my L3 cluster conversion), but it was nowhere near as hard as i expected.

Awesome fonzie. If i had power windows i would have done this. When i get a new car i WILL be doing this. Good work.

Cheers mate

[Trayner]

Fortunately the resistors came with the LED's, and I didn't have to waste my time figuring it out. This is the same lot that i actually bought. I have a like 20 left over though... How about a beer a peice, and I'll give you a hand? Let me know.

sounds good to me

[Verynice]

I'm intenting to change most of the illumination in my car to blue, rather than the ugly holden green,

check mine out fonz

was about to do the heater control panels but hopefully getting a statesman one day so no point.

[Fonzie]

I like it! My intentions were much the same, but heater control too. And I'm getting gauge fascias so the red will still be red. Needles white, LCDs white too.

[Verynice]

yeah man i had my heater control planned out but not worth going ahead with it

[GAMBLR]

Looks good Fonzie. Helpful cos my switch is playing up, now I can see what's wrong with it :P Top write up mate!

[Fonzie]

If you need to get to the switch mechanism, remove the two rocker switches... Remove the brown squares.. Rip the original lights out... Then the tabs along the bottom of the switch, use a small flathead screwdriver to get it off... If you don't remove the lights, it won't come right up. It's pretty straightforward, there isn't much you can really put on backwards.. just make sure all the contacts are clean.

[ScoHar]

here are a couple more pics you may want to use and the correct resistor type.

VP Commodore Window Switch LED's

[HRVATSKI_VOJNIK]

should just point out that in some switchs (maybe older series) the LED isn't on top but inside the switch. here's a pic. (just ignore the led leg lengths)

P.S: if your getting LEDS from Hong kong, try this seller (200 leds for ~$10) don't know if he still ships with free resistors. But their only 6c at dicksmith. As for working out which resistors you need, use this website if your too lazy to do the maths .

[Ice101]

Thanks for posting this thread, I've just finished the conversion and it looks good. Random question but are there lights installed in the rear window switches?

[1SIKR8]

was looking and my question is, i own a VT and i wanna do the same thing .... but this was done in a VP/VR/VS ..... would there be anything diffrent i have to do ?

fonzie looks awsome man, nice work

[Fonzie]

Thanks for posting this thread, I've just finished the conversion and it looks good. Random question but are there lights installed in the rear window switches?

Sure is. Just one of those things I never got around to doing. The process should be very similar to the fronts.

was looking and my question is, i own a VT and i wanna do the same thing .... but this was done in a VP/VR/VS ..... would there be anything diffrent i have to do ?

Yes. Almost everything different infact. I'm not sure A: How to remove the VT switch assembly... B: Where the LED's are mounted inside the assembly... And C: How to get to aforementioned LED's. Just rip it out and tear it to pieces, find the LED's and go buy some in your preferred colour.

Fonzie

[calais24/7]

that looks pretty sik and i wann give this a go, i have noo idea what resistor thing i should use and where i solder it? Links would be great. Sorry for the thread dig lol

50 x 3mm Ultra Bright Blue 8000 mcd LED Bulb Light | eBay

These are the right ones yeah?

[wrx884]

that looks pretty sik and i wann give this a go, i have noo idea what resistor thing i should use and where i solder it? Links would be great. Sorry for the thread dig lol

50 x 3mm Ultra Bright Blue 8000 mcd LED Bulb Light | eBay

These are the right ones yeah?

using the data info on that ebay link use this calcuator as a guide.

LED series parallel array wizard

[calais24/7]

i have absoloutly nfi what any of those terms mean, but i managed to get 120ohm? does that sound roughly right lol?

[calais24/7]

Another question, with the back ones, i had a broken one laying around so i thought id have a play. Is there a better way to getting the rocker off rather then jamming a flat headed screw driver down the side and popping it off lol. And can i fix it? To make it go down you have to push the button in heaps if that makes sense

[wrx884]

14V is ur source voltage
3.2V is ur forward voltage (u can go 3V 2 play it safe or 3.4V if u want a tad more out of the LEDs which isnt always best but the data sheet says their range is between 3-3.4V)
20mA is ur diode forward current
1 LED in ur array

= 1/2w 560Ohm resistors

4 the back switches do they have those brown squares in them still? i think they used them in these 2.

[calais24/7]

ive no idea how i got 120 ohm then :/ Cheers for working that out for me. And yeah they have the two brown squars in them