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Location:
Sydney - Castle Hill
Registered:
June 2004
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EL luminous instrument cluster kits
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Wed, 23 June 2004 13:58
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Does anyone know if these are made for the corollas? AE92 specifically. If they are, do you know where I could get 1 from and how much I would be looking at roughly? I know you can pickup ones for R33 skylines for about $150, so I'm hoping they are about the same.
Thanks for your help,
Dave
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Location:
VIC
Registered:
November 2003
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Re: EL luminous instrument cluster kits
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Thu, 24 June 2004 15:23
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Don't know of anywhere that stocks guages for corollas, all I know is you can have a set custom made by a lot of places, but you're looking at around $300 to do so.
There is a site www.speedhut.com in the US which specialises in guages, they may do custom ones. A mate of mine ordered guages from them and they cost him $120 AU so that's not too bad.
Alternatively, you can make your own - it's really easy to do and cheaper, so long as you have some basic knowledge and can be bothered doing it yourself. I made white dials for my mkIII supra that light up bright blue and they cost me around $50.
If you want to know how to make them, or photos of what they look like, let me know. Otherwise good luck in your search 
Darcangel
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Location:
Sydney - Castle Hill
Registered:
June 2004
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Re: EL luminous instrument cluster kits
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Fri, 25 June 2004 15:56
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Yeah I don't mind doing a bit of work, so I would be interested in how do to it, and what it looks like.
Thanks
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Location:
Canberra
Registered:
February 2004
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Re: EL luminous instrument cluster kits
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Sat, 26 June 2004 21:26
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You might do a bit of a post there mate so we can all have a look.
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Location:
Kita-Ku, Sapporo, Japan
Registered:
January 2003
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Re: EL luminous instrument cluster kits
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Sun, 27 June 2004 01:15
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i'd like to see as well.
i have been looking at the EL sheets you can cut up, and also the EL wires available around the place...
ideally i'd love to do a 'reverse indiglo' type of dial.
pics pics!!
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Location:
VIC
Registered:
November 2003
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Re: EL luminous instrument cluster kits
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Mon, 28 June 2004 14:29
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Sorry took me a while to reply guys, been a busy week!
Ok, will post pics hopefully in the next few days, went to take some the other day and dead batteries grrrrr.....
Basically, if you want to make your own, this is how I did mine - it might sound a lil shoddy, but believe me, the number of people who see them and go woooooooooooowwwww those must've cost you a bit and the fact you can be proud of something u did yourself, makes it worthwile IMHO 
Ok, take your dash out, take your guages out and run each guage through a scanner (bear in mind you will want at least a semi decent printer and scanner). You can then change the colours of the guage faces or add any designs etc, change the fonts if you want to - whatever! I wanted white dials, so I just used microsoft photo editor (which comes with MS Office, but most basic graphics software has this feature) and hit 'invert colours'. Makes a standard black dial nice and white!
Ok so you then print these out and get yourself a sharp scalpel or something - most newsagents or arts suppliers have them. You cut out your holes for screws and needles and for any lights which show through like fuel warning or door warning lights etc.
Now what you need to get yourself is the stuff that actually makes them glow. It's called EL FOIL, you can do a search on ebay and find the guy I bought mine from (he's got auctions on now I believe) or you can head to www.cooltronix.com and buy them from his website. I think it cost me 15 bux a sheet and I needed about 4 sheets.
Use a permanent marker (with a fine tip) or something similar and use your existing guage faces as stencils to mark any holes you need to cut on the EL FOIL and cut them out to shape. They come with power supplies (inverters actually) and pins that allow you to wire them up.
Now what the inverters do is take your 12v DC from your battery and bumps it up to about 80v AC which the FOIL needs, you can use the crappy ones they send or for about $12US buy one from www.speedhut.com in the US - this one is more efficient and has a dimmer switch as well as allowing you to switch between green or blue.
So once you have all that, use a multimeter or electrical probe to find a 12v + feed that comes on when ur headlights are on, this will be one of the wires that feeds into your dash. Ground the other wire and you're all set!
The white dials look all sporty during the day and the whole dial lights up bright blue at night.
Now those who are looking for just the numbers/markers lighting up, that's harder because you need to use black cardboard or something that blocks out most of the light from the foil and only lets it through the think slits you cut into it where your markers and numbers are.
Hope this helps guys, will post pics shortly!
Darcangel
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Location:
VIC
Registered:
November 2003
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Location:
sydney
Registered:
May 2003
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Re: EL luminous instrument cluster kits
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Tue, 29 June 2004 17:39
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thanks mate for the info
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Location:
VIC
Registered:
November 2003
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Re: EL luminous instrument cluster kits
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Wed, 30 June 2004 11:03
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Hey guys,
A few people have let me know that the links to the pics didn't work, which is bizzare cos they are exactly the same, only diff is, these ones I typed in myself and the others were entered using the url post button....odd eh
I just figured out what it is...the post url thing puts a space between the ".jp" and the g, eg it says 'blahblah.jp g' which stops it working.... even when I enter it manually - the links come up like that...strange.
So I guess, just copy the links below into ur browsers hey. Anyways, here they are...
www.geocities.com/rockinsandman/P1010029.jpg
www.geocities.com/rockinsandman/P1010030.jpg
www.geocities.com/rockinsandman/P1010031.jpg
Darcangel
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Location:
Kita-Ku, Sapporo, Japan
Registered:
January 2003
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Re: EL luminous instrument cluster kits
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Wed, 30 June 2004 11:56
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they look fantastic
thanks for the pics and links!
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Toymods Club Treasurer
Location:
Sydney
Registered:
May 2002
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Re: EL luminous instrument cluster kits
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Thu, 01 July 2004 03:49
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I've just tried, & still can't get to the pages. 
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