Relentless1

I bought these strip lights, they were cheap and ended up working perfectly, I used about 36"

LEDwholesalers 16.4 Feet (5 Meter) Flexible LED Light Strip with 300xSMD3528 and Adhesive Back, 12 Volt, Blue, 2026BU:Amazon:Home Improvement

They look like this on a roll...



I think most of you can figure out how to get to this point with your cluster, everything is pretty self explanatory...



Now, you can use any of the bulb pads where the old lights were to power the LED strips, I have marked my circuit board below. I make ZERO promises that the polarity is the same as yours. As you can see below, there are four "spots" under each bulb but only the two bigger of the four are used. I marked the GROUND with a red dot from a sharpie, the bigger pad opposite of the pad with the red dot is the positive. AGAIN, the bigger pad marked by the red dot is the GROUND






I cut two small pieces of wire from an old headlight harness I had and soldered it to the LED strip first, you will see where you solder to when you look at it if you use the same kind I did



I routed the strip like this picture, my son was trying to grab my soldering iron and I forgot to take a picture but I drew it out, make sure to go under the vertical bars in the white trim plastic on either side of the speedometer. I stuck it all to the white plastic except for the last few inches that went between the four gauges on the right. The strip was all one piece, I just had trouble drawing it in the correct place on my phone, haha, but you get the idea.



I soldered the power using the far left bulb pad for the trans cooler gauge. I tested the light distribution by putting the cleanse plastic diffuser over the LED's and sitting the overlay and escalade trim over the top. I powered the lights on with an old cluster pigtail I got at LKQ with all the wires but the power and ground removed and a power wheels battery



It ended up looking pretty good, I didn't put the needles on yet because I need to install it in the truck first. The escalade trim is not installed all the way, that's why you can see some extra light but once again, you get the idea.



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MikeD.

iTrader: (1)

One thing I suggest to anyone doing the strips, is getting the non-waterproof stuff. Ive done a handful of clusters, and the waterproof stuff is not as flexible, so it tends to pull away from the edges because theres a lot of tension. I actually did strips, and bulbs. That way I had perfect coverage.

Relentless1

There's actually no dim spots like the picture makes it seem, there was a lot of light leaking with the needles off and the escalade trim not seated down all the way and my phone picked it up weird