LED mod for Light Switch Illumination

[rrbrian222]

I saw this on another ranger/explorer web forum awhile ago.... I'm looking to convert my light switch illumination bulb over to LED and want to know how to mod it. I believe it is normally ON whenever the headlights/parking lights are OFF. Study the pictures and give me your thoughts.

 

[Ranger Sport Honduras]

i did exactly the same on mine, but the LED burned out haha
did it on my moms and brother's trucks also. deff looks better

 

[shane96ranger]

I think that looks sweet. Are these your pics or somebody elses? I know this would be easy with the 4X4 switch.

i did exactly the same on mine, but the LED burned out haha
did it on my moms and brother's trucks also. deff looks better

Did you use a 12 volt LED? I believe most LED's are only rated for something like 5 volts. They usually last forever if they aren't overpowered.

 

[rrbrian222]

I got the pics off another site awhile back cause i wanted to try the mod.... I'm still trying to figure out how to best wire up the LED, its hard to tell from the pics what this guy did. Ebay has a 12 volt 3mm blue LED with leads $1.69, I think I'll try that for my first attempt. I'm guessing the LED is a built-in resistor to handle the relatively high voltage.

 

[Ranger Sport Honduras]

yes i used a 12v led. dunno why it failed.

 

[shane96ranger]

I got the pics off another site awhile back cause i wanted to try the mod.... I'm still trying to figure out how to best wire up the LED, its hard to tell from the pics what this guy did. Ebay has a 12 volt 3mm blue LED with leads $1.69, I think I'll try that for my first attempt. I'm guessing the LED is a built-in resistor to handle the relatively high voltage.

I have a 4X4 switch sitting in my truck, I'll go see how that is. I'm sure they are similarly mounted.

 

[shane96ranger]

I looked at it and it looks like it would be easy to do it the way I'm going to, because I just noticed mine has burned out on my headlight switch too. I think the main question is mounting the LED, right? I'm going to use what is called a fugitive glue. It's called fugitive because it can flee the scene, meaning it can be peeled off, much like the glue used to apply shipping labels to magazines and such. I will apply it with a hot glue gun, and it needs to be somewhere in the range of 250 degrees to melt so the LED will not generate enough heat to melt it. The glue is clear too, so it ought to work out sweet.

As far as wiring is concerned, you can pull the positive off of the brown wire coming off the switch which is used for park lights.

 

[shane96ranger]

I ordered some LED's today to fix my situation. Did you ever get anything done on yours OP?

 

[rrbrian222]

I ended up buying the 3mm blue LED with 10" leads off ebay. It came with a resistor built in to the positive lead, presumably to allow it to handle 12 volts without frying. I began the mod by taking the original burned-out bulb out of the black plastic holder, and then used a drill bit to create a larger hole through the body of the holder for the LED wires. I put the LED in the holder with the head sticking out the top, just like in the picture.

My next task was to figure out how to wire up the LED. I figured it would be too difficult to rig the wires the same way as the original bulb, so I probed around the headlight switch harness with a volt meter and found a two wires (possibly for the parking lights) that showed zero voltage with the headlights off, but 12 volts with them on. I disassembled the harness to get at the crimped connectors, and then soldered my new LED leads onto those connectors. (I used the brown wire for the positive lead, the black wire for negative)

I installed the LED/holder in the switch assembly and snapped the truck harness connector back in place. I turned the parking lights on, and there it was....my new Blue LED switch illumination shining bright! Now I have to put the dash back together. (I'm also adding a tachometer instrument cluster from a 95 explorer as well as blue inverted cone LED's for it)

In doing this mod, I ended up changing the way the switch illumination works from stock. Ford engineered the illumination light to be on at all times, or at least when the lights were off. I'm assuming this is to aid the driver in locating the switch when driving at dusk. This is also why everyone's bulb has been burned out for years and years. So with my mod, the LED is on only when the parking/headlights are on. Seems to make more sense I guess.

I'll add a picture soon of what I did I case anyone want a bit of visual reference.

 

[shane96ranger]

Damn it, I just bought the 5mm LED's. Are they going to be too big?

 

[rrbrian222]

Yeah, I think you may be SOL with the 5mm LED, but let me know. I actually measured the original bulb width with a ruler which led me to guess the 3mm would be a better fit. Some guy on Ebay in Florida has the 3mm with leads for $1.69 shipped. It came via USPS in three days.

Here's a pic of what mine looks like just prior to reassembly.

The red and black wires on the right of the pic are the LED leads going into the stock connector. Brown to Red, Black to Black. I left the LED hanging there to show how it fit inside the holder.

 

[shane96ranger]

I actually measured the original bulb width with a ruler which led me to guess the 3mm would be a better fit.

I actually looked at my 4X4 switch bulb, and thought it was 5mm. But it also had the "blue bulb condom" on it. I didn't take that off and look at the actual bulb. I also bought white LED's, I want to see how it looks. Like you said though, they are cheap, so I'll play around a bit to find what I want.

 

[rrbrian222]

Just found another link, wish I would have spotted this earlier cause its has some excellent info...


http://www.cardomain.com/ride/296394/2002-ford-ranger-regular-cab-kennett-square-pa-us?p=12

 

[cc98ranger]

I have the LED light in my switch which I got from the guy on another site who makes them up and the price was very reasonable and I sent him my burned out holder for reuse. It looks really good and since I needed to replace some of the bulbs in my dash I figured I would get it working as well. Now my dash is nice a bright again.

 

[rrbrian222]

How much does he charge to re-lamp the holder with an LED? Probably a nice little side business for the guy considering how everyone's headlight/4x4 switch bulbs are burned out.....