'02 Tahoe custom cluster

[Electrician]

Stepper motors? That's '03 and up. My '02 is air-core motors (99-02). What year do you have? Because the needles are different between the two clusters. I got mine from Ebay I think

 

[Electrician]

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[iamdub]

The morphing to red on the tach is AWESOME! Gonna do the same for the speedo? Full red around 80 or 100 seems appropriate.

Is it a lens thing or is it something triggering an RGB controller based on pointer position?

Did you do anything for the odometer/gear selector display or is it still teal green?

 

[Electrician]

I bought some transparent blue stick-on film used for photography lights to put over the odometer area, but it's not really dark enough to do much so I'm gonna have to try a darker one. It helped slightly. And the color changing needles: are really white needles. I have a blue led positioned for the lower half of the gauge, and of course red for the upper. And I blacked out a lot of the underside of the actual needle base so it helps to only picked up the light in a small area (to help avoid a purple needle for half it's sweep) Yes, I am still contimplating doing a sensor/trigger set-up with a controller to actually switch the LEDs on/off accordingly as the needles sweep. Hadn't gotten that far. Just recently finished my head swap and DIC install and probably looking at needing a new altenator soon. Bouncing battery needle :/

 

[Tonyrodz]

I bought some transparent blue stick-on film used for photography lights to put over the odometer area, but it's not really dark enough to do much so I'm gonna have to try a darker one. It helped slightly. And the color changing needles: are really white needles. I have a blue led positioned for the lower half of the gauge, and of course red for the upper. And I blacked out a lot of the underside of the actual needle base so it helps to only picked up the light in a small area (to help avoid a purple needle for half it's sweep) Yes, I am still contimplating doing a sensor/trigger set-up with a controller to actually switch the LEDs on/off accordingly as the needles sweep. Hadn't gotten that far. Just recently finished my head swap and DIC install and probably looking at needing a new altenator soon. Bouncing battery needle :/

Why not just put a 2nd or even 3rd layer of blue tint on? Might make it dark enough for you.

 

[Electrician]

I tried that. I actually tried like 8 layers once! But it starts to lose clarity for the display with that many.

 

[Rocket Man]

Why not just put a 2nd or even 3rd layer of blue tint on? Might make it dark enough for you.

I tried that. I actually tried like 8 layers once! But it starts to lose clarity for the display with that many.

Exactly. On mine, by the time I got it blue enough by adding 2-3 layers of blue tint film I could no longer read the odometer during the day so I just removed it all.

 

[iamdub]

I bought some transparent blue stick-on film used for photography lights to put over the odometer area, but it's not really dark enough to do much so I'm gonna have to try a darker one. It helped slightly. And the color changing needles: are really white needles. I have a blue led positioned for the lower half of the gauge, and of course red for the upper. And I blacked out a lot of the underside of the actual needle base so it helps to only picked up the light in a small area (to help avoid a purple needle for half it's sweep) Yes, I am still contimplating doing a sensor/trigger set-up with a controller to actually switch the LEDs on/off accordingly as the needles sweep. Hadn't gotten that far. Just recently finished my head swap and DIC install and probably looking at needing a new altenator soon. Bouncing battery needle :/

I don't know how the photography filter compares, but I used blue window tint years ago on my '02 S10. Gave it a bit of an "icy" blue color. I don't remember how many layers I used- two, maybe three. It was taken back around '05-'06 with a 3.2mp camera, so the quality and color might not be so accurate. It wasn't this blurry in real life, for sure:

 

[Tonyrodz]

I don't know how the photography filter compares, but I used blue window tint years ago on my '02 S10. Gave it a bit of an "icy" blue color. I don't remember how many layers I used- two, maybe three. It was taken back around '05-'06 with a 3.2mp camera, so the quality and color might not be so accurate. It wasn't this blurry in real life, for sure:

View attachment 389177

From the film you gave me. I only used 1 layer.
Looks bluer in person.

 

[iamdub]

From the film you gave me. I only used 1 layer.View attachment 389183View attachment 389184View attachment 389185
Looks bluer in person.

I forget- did you ever try two or more layers?

 

[Tonyrodz]

I forget- did you ever try two or more layers?

No, just did the one, was good for me.

 

[Electrician]

This is 3 layers of blue (not dark blue)
1 layer of red, and 3 more blue on top

 

[Rocket Man]

View attachment 389302
This is 3 layers of blue (not dark blue)
1 layer of red, and 3 more blue on top

I wonder what it looks like on a sunny day. That was my problem, by the time I got enough layers (2-3?) for it to look blue I couldn’t see it worth a damn on a sunny day. Maybe the 03-up are brighter or somehow different but my 02 didn’t want to cooperate. It drove me crazy so I removed everything.

 

[Electrician]

The main problem of getting pure blue is the original turquoise (green+blue) color of the display. Green light is green light. Blue light is blue. So by filtering out all of the green, you essentially got half the light left: blue at half original brightness. I'm not sure about the color/brightness of the 03+ clusters. I feel like alot of the online pics (guys trying to sell modded clusters on ebay, etc) with crazy blue bright displays is maybe a bit of "photo filtering".

 

[Electrician]

I don't know how the photography filter compares, but I used blue window tint years ago on my '02 S10. Gave it a bit of an "icy" blue color. I don't remember how many layers I used- two, maybe three. It was taken back around '05-'06 with a 3.2mp camera, so the quality and color might not be so accurate. It wasn't this blurry in real life, for sure:

View attachment 389177

From the film you gave me. I only used 1 layer.View attachment 389183View attachment 389184View attachment 389185
Looks bluer in person.

That does look good. I'm gonna have to try it. Do you remember the brand by chance?

 

[iamdub]

That does look good. I'm gonna have to try it. Do you remember the brand by chance?

This was 16+ years ago. It was some blue window tint I bought from Walmart or one of the parts stores. "Gila Xtreme" comes to mind. Pretty sure they don't make it any more, but there are other brands. I sent some to @Tonyrodz a few years ago to do his. I can't recall if I threw the rest away after that or not. A lot of it was wrinkled from being squashed in storage and I had to cut out some rectangles from undamaged sections for Tony. I'll let you know if I find it and can send you some.

 

[Electrician]

Nah, no worries bud. I'll find some on Amazon and give it a go. I'm working on my revised, version 2 cluster right now too so this should work out perfect. Thanks

 

[Electrician]

Well I decided to go ahead and complete my custom cluster version 2 even tho my truck is out of commision (maybe forever). I'm doing the final tweeks and a little bit of programming and I'll call this one finished. Pics are coming soon!

 

[Rocket Man]

What’s wrong with your truck?

 

[Tonyrodz]

What’s wrong with your truck?

Someone hit him. Thinks it's totaled.