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So here's the back story. I have a a 1995 Triumph Speed Triple, and the gauge cluster bulbs had burned out. These are not fun to get to and I figured, if these are the original bulbs, and have lasted this long, great, but they were never very bright for one, and for two some of them are on nearly all the time. While I'm in there, why not replace them all out with LED bulbs? Well turns out that the pre-build bulbs you can order on online, are: 1. Expensive 2. are going to take about a week to be delivered. Ok, I have soldering skills (minimal), and like to hack stuff, so lets make this a project. The following is the result of this whim for a weekend project.
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You can still use your rather neat dodge with the perfboard, but not have that resistor and all the tiresome soldering. Just a thought.
Check out:
http://www.maplin.co.uk/5mm-12v-leds-35782
These are 5mm, but there are others. Also, might it not be a better idea to use red LEDs for the instruments, to reduce night blindness, U-Boat style?
Sorry if this sounds negative, it isn't really - You've inspired me to do the same to my BMW, most of whose instrument lights have gone and, as usual, my local accredited BMW dealer hasn't got any. He doesn't even stock inner tubes... ARRRGH!
I tried this with one LED, but on my bike the area above the LED was too bright, but the rest was too dark. Obviously (in retrospect :) this is the 60 degree angle of illumination as standard from these devices. The standard bulb looks identical to the ones on your Trumpet, and puts out most of its illumination from the sides, which is where the light pipes are on my Beemer.
It occurs to me that drilling the LED lens end-on with an oversize drill bit carefully would make a hollow cone with the apex pointing towards the "wires" end of the LED, and then filling this cone with something as reflective as possible (like silver paint, maybe?) might divert enough light towards the light pipes, whilst blocking enough of the standard 60 degree forward beam to prevent the bright spot directly above the LED, making the whole deal a lot more pleasing to the eye.
What do you think?
P.S. I hope your instrument lights are easier to get at than mine. I had to take half the front of the bike off to get at the little buggers.
What I ended up doing was bending the neck of the LED to about 90 degrees and shining it at the side of the houseing, where it is white and quite reflective already, and I had very good luck with evening out the lighting profile.
If I had to do it all over agian, I would go without any resisters, and just use 3-4 LED's in series, and have them all bent at different angles in a 90 degree arc.
Also since mine is a "naked" bike, All I had to remove was the cowl, the headlight houseing, and then seperate the gauge pod from the chassis, then remove the back covers of each gauge. Fairly simple.
I'll think some more...
This is a really good idea though. 12v LEDs are actually cheaper than those little instrument bulbs over here in UK, and will almost certainly last longer than the bike, although that is more a reflection of the "joys" of BMW ownership. My local dealer quoted me £75 plus VAT to replace the 4 instrument bulbs. 4 bulbs @ £0.70 = £2.80. Not exactly designed for easy maintenance :(
they now make LED versions of the "wedge" style bulbs which are quite cheap . But as shown above the light distribution with LED is all very focused . a couple of guy used fine sand paper to make the water clear bodies "frosted" and that seemed to help, other smaller LED's have diffuser ends on which as above appears to be a concave dimple in the top rather like your drill start hole.