Sunday, February 05, 2006 - 09:18 pm, by: Peter Nitschke(Pen)
Driver Side Window Switch LED Swap Tutorial kindly provided by Lawrence Ostle.
Disclaimer/Comment – Lawrence Ostle: This procedure worked for me, but I guess it may not work for you depending on your car, ability and tools you have available to you, so if your car bursts into flames as result of following this tutorial please don’t blame me ;-)
I wrote this tutorial after the fact, so if I missed a few steps - apologies.
I am NOT an electronics technician, and may have got things wrong. However the unit I modified is in my car now.
Please take this document at face value – I did this for my own pleasure and documented it to give something back to soarercentral which has been a source of education and fun before and since I bought a Soarer.
LED’s LED’s are polarity sensitive, so be aware of this. LED’s in THIS case do not require a resistor as they are replacing an existing LED, and a resistor is built into the circuit board.
What you need is:
Tools: - screwdrivers of various sizes, Philips and flat. - a wide bladed, blunt flat knife - small side-cutters - small pin-nose pliers - a soldering iron - a hot glue gun - a multi meter
Materials: - solder - hot glue sticks - 3 x Jaycar LED 3mm Blue 1000mcd CAT. NO. ZD0130 (Australian reference, www.jaycar.com.au)
You: - Some soldering skills and a bit of electronics know how and common sense - 60 mins undisturbed - A steady hand - Patience – don’t rush this - A workbench and lots of light
SECTION 1 – REMOVING THE DRIVER’S WINDOW CONTROL
1. Using a flat, blunt knife, lever the front of the control panel up – it is held in place with clips and kind of hinges from the back of the panel – no screws - once done it becomes quite apparent how it works. 2. Remove the connectors by squeezing the catches with the pin nose pliers and pulling the switches away from the connectors. 3. The control panel is now detached. 4. Remove the three grey screws from the reverse side of the window unit – leave the brass ones alone.
5. Leave the mirror control panel in place – no LED’s here! 6. The window lock button just pops off, the door lock and passenger buttons need to be levered out gently one side at a time – do the ‘inner’ side of the switch first, hold it open then do the ‘outer’ Leave the ‘auto’ one until last as this needs extra persuasion.
lever the inner first....
…hold the inner and lever the outer pivot to remove …
7. Wrap the auto switch in 3-4 layers of tape to protect the finish. Grasp the switch firmly with a pair of large pliers and pull away from the housing. This is a bit tricky, and took me a while to get the cover off, but come off it did.
Grab this sucker with pliers and wrestle
8. You may now remove the black plastic cover exposing the board beneath and the three LED’s
Black cover off, exposing the pale green factory led’s etc below
SECTION 2 – REPLACING THE LED’S
1. There are three LED’s – one for the ‘auto’ button, one for the ‘door lock’ button and one for the ‘passenger’ button. 2. The positive pole is on the right of each one as you look at them. 3. Snip the legs of the factory LED’s leaving stubs at the base for later use.
led's snipped leaving wire stubs for later use
4. Remove the factory LED’s using the pin nose pliers – retain for the next step. 5. Cut the legs of the new blue LED’s so they are 3-4mm longer than the factory LED’s you have just removed. 6. Bend the legs of the blue LED’s into the appropriate shape and seat in place of the factory LED’s. Ensure that the positive pole is on the right as you look at the LED.
LED bent into correct shape
7. Solder the legs of the new LED’s onto the stubs of the factory LED’s left behind previously. 8. To check the polarity of the LED, set your multi-meter to Ohms. Place the positive lead against one leg of the LED, and the negative to the other. The LED will emit a soft glow if you have the polarity right, if not, it won’t
all led's in place, soldered to stubs
9. Test the lot by plugging back into the car – you should have a cool blue glow.
SECTION 3 – REPLACING THE SWITCH IN THE CAR
1. Pretty easy – involves reversing the procedure in section 1.
Tuesday, February 07, 2006 - 08:13 am, by: Mark Paddick(Sparks)
Not all cars have the mirror button light, Limiteds and Luxo packs only. It is an orange LED and is THE hardest light to change in the car. I won't do them. My car has a blue one and so does Perry's; there will be no more done by me.
Tuesday, February 07, 2006 - 03:30 pm, by: Clayton Webb(Clackers)
Sorry to be picky Lawrence. Just thought because it's a guide it should be correct, well half correct! I would also file the LED heads flat to help with light dispersion. I have to pull mine out again and file them
Monday, April 03, 2006 - 12:22 am, by: Gregory Vasic(Gregcayman)
Lawrence, many thanks for your detailed instructions. I did both doors now thanks your your help.
I didn't have an LED in the mirror switch. It all worked just like you said. I used epoxy instead of hot glue which worked fine.
I found that the buttons actually needed to be expanded from underneath and that helped a great deal in their removal.
Cutting the "flap" on the passengers door worked like a dream. I thought I could do it without that but there was no way it would work. I simply cut the flap neatly removing as little material as possible and glued the flap back on after and all is fine.
I've done mine in white and does it look great! Now that I've gone crazy on Leds I'm going to do all the other lights in the car too ! best regards, Greg
Monday, July 17, 2006 - 04:39 pm, by: Don Bagnall(Baggs)
Yeah, good for preserving your night vision when you're out on those night-ops that require maximum stealth when dealing with enem.........Oops! never mind , nothing to see here, move along! move along!
Sunday, September 02, 2007 - 08:17 pm, by: Phillip George(Phildo)
Hey guys did my switch on the weekend,iam really glad with it, come out good and just saying thank you to who ever put a bit of helpful info in. will have pictures soon
Friday, November 27, 2009 - 11:50 am, by: Stuart Geldard(Stewyg86)
Hey Guys, Just another quick addition to this tutorial. While you have the whole box and dice in pieces disassemble the switches themselves and clean the contacts inside them. It's not that hard or risky if you are CAREFUL! You will then prolong the life of the switches by getting rid of the carbonization where the switches arc when you make and break the contact. this does not apply to the window lock switch or the drivers window switch, just the other two. Nothing worse then spending all the time on an LED upgrade only to have to pull it apart later on due to them being busted
Tuesday, November 13, 2012 - 11:19 pm, by: Stuart Thompson(Xpimp)
For those putting LEDs in their window switches.
Found a super easy way to pry off the passenger & drivers window switch buttons from the assembly.
Believe it or not, you can just drill 2 holes as shown in the image below - and then use a small screwdriver to press in the button tab. One on each side. This only works for the larger buttons, where the tabs are internal and can not be accessed from the sides. These are normally the fiddly ones.
This is much easier than other methods of using a set of pliers (which scratch the outside button that you see). Drilling the holes should cause no issue as where shown bits of plastic do not come in contact with switch and dust is unlikely to be an issue.
Diagram provided below (thought Id share this as it cuts down the time & chance of breaking the switch):
I also agree on cleaning the contacts while you have it apart, I fixed my passenger window switch doing this during the conversion.
Previous
I would also file the LED heads flat to help with light dispersion. I have to pull mine out again and file them
, nothing to see here, move along! move along! 
