Russ's GAUGES installed!! ***PICS 56K Warning***

[Chiznarles]

Okay I installed these a while back but didn't take pics until now. As you can see in the pics the dispersion of the light isn't that good on the speedo, I'm waiting for Celiruss to send me the fix for it and hopefully it will be all good. I love the way these gauges look during the day, so clean.

www.rjautoworks.com

Dusk shot, lights off:
http://www.chiznarles.com/pics/rj1.jpg

Dusk shot, lights on:
http://www.chiznarles.com/pics/rj2.jpg

Night shot:
http://www.chiznarles.com/pics/rj3.jpg

Day shot:
http://www.chiznarles.com/pics/rj4.jpg

[Sups]

yea... the night pics are not that great, but day ones :thumbup:

[skamikaze]

looks great, russ' hard work definitely paid off! :thumbup:

[pokgai]

heres mine:

http://pokgai.dvent.com/gallery/albums/gauges/DSC04799.sized.jpg
http://pokgai.dvent.com/gallery/albums/gauges/DSC04807.sized.jpg

eh?

ill take more pics when its not raining :gap:


my car is in the garage while its raining cuz i just waxed it, and i want a full day-sunlight shot

[Sups]

where did you get those red needles?

[pokgai]

painted them :thumbup:

[00CericaRuss]

here's a couple of mine w/one diffusion method (not the one that i was planning on sending out.. but a possibility) i'm having problems trying to buy the other stuff.. the 2 places that i know have it won't sell to me for some screwed up reason.

60,120,160 still a bit dim.. need to take pics of the other stuff

http://russ.angrypacket.com/albums/2003-02-24-newgauges-lightdiffusion/DSC01550.sized.jpg
http://russ.angrypacket.com/albums/2003-02-24-newgauges-lightdiffusion/DSC01551.sized.jpg

[00CericaRuss]

the funny thing is.. now that i think about it.. is ... it's not quite as dim in person.. damn pictures... oh wells... gotta find that other stuff in quantities less than 100 ft

[borpph]

Sweet Jesus! Those are nice. Ok, when I have an extra $50 or so, I'm going to get these gauges.

[Dimitri]

Russ: When are the Km/h coming out?

[RATIFIED]

Plan on making any for us auto GT-S owners?? :)

[eastbb25]

What bout the gt owners..when they going to be ready??

[Mistrimeat]

Looks good

[baNanA_ryCe]

quetsion: are your guys needles really that bright? mine are pretty dim....i'll take some pictures of mine later...but where did you get urs from? i think imma have to get new LEDs since mine aren't bright enough.....

i'll take a picture with a normal amount of exposure so it looks real so you guys can see how mine reallly....

BTW: nICE GUAGES.....i'm still stickin w/ my ac auto technic though...

[Chiznarles]

ben, the nite shot on my pic is pretty accurate to what i see. if you notice.. the gas/temp gauge and the indicator lights are much brighter than the speedo/tach. The needle is bright because i haven't taken off the amber paint.. I dont know if i will b/c the stock paint is the most reflective.

[zcs626]

nice pics, just awaiting the GT and the GTS Auto ones to come. :)

edit: anyone with these gauges with super white LED's?

[ToyoGtS]

I dont' have a digital camera but my gauges look just like pokgai's at night. The dispersion is not very good and for some reason mine come out very fuzzy looking, the light coming through disperses more, maybe because they are white gauges and the light deflects off the white edges of the numbers instead of being better defined? Also, my speedo at 140-160 is very light, i changed the led on it once already in hopes it would come out better but i think it came out worse. I'm going to take the red seat belt Led, cause i can't stand the blinking, and put it there instead. Just so you guys know, i used the two spoon method on removing the needles and it was the simplest thing in the world to do, no problems what so ever, and i could't find transparent paint for my needles, so i used clear vinyl, extra from my tail lights. It's comes out great during the day, you can see the km numbers through the needle which i love, at night they are not so easy to see but i like the transparent look, i think it's kinda ghostly cool. Has anyone tried to put the stock gauges behind the new ones for better color dispersment cause if you look at the back of the stock ones it's designed perfectly. I just wonder if it'll fit and/or if it will make it too dull. All in all the gauges are amazing! Thanks Russ.

[00CericaRuss]

ok... the answers to the questions.. sorry for the delay.. I've been spending all my time trying to get the light dispersion right.

gt and gts auto comin soon... preorders will probably start in a couple weeks once I have all the artwork completed.

as for light dispersion.
I'm most likely going to get the gradient stuff printed on the material so that the places can actually sell it to me, since they only sell it if you get stuff printed on it.. bastards!
It will be die cut to the same specs as the gauge face itself, so it will fit.. I'm going to grab the die from the shop that did the gauges.

I'm hoping to have the solution finalized by the end of the week.

Russ

[Jesse IL]

Another solution:

As soon as I get my gauges from Russ (sent back my black/blue for black/white) I am going to backlight the whole thing with EL sheet...basically homemade reverse indiglo gauges. You can get EL sheet in any color and power inverters from Digikey for pretty cheap. If you have the white numbers, you can put colored transparent vinyl behind them with white EL sheet and get whatever colors you want. That is my plan.

[Chiznarles]

really, where do you get this EL sheet? I've never heard of digikey.. how much would this cost?

and wouldn't it negate the need for changing the LEDs?

[2002GT_Celica]

Very nice. :thumbup:

[SilverBulletGTS]

For the dim needles, what do you guys think about painting the back of the needles silver (solid) or something somewhat reflective, and the fronts and sides the color (transparent) you want to see, think'n about doing that when I get around to installing the guages. Seems like it might make them a bit brighter.

[Jesse IL]

I painted my needles red with Testors Guards Red paint. I have absolutely no problems with dim needles, and my LED's are fairly low brightness. You just need to make sure that when you paint them, they are completely opaque. That's why I don't understand people recommending that crappy Tamiya transparent paint?

[00CericaRuss]

the tamiya blue works really well for me

[coOOlcelica]

looks good russ....:thumbup:

[Lord Chaos]

light dipersion problems?? Hmm...I don't seem to have a problem with mine they look way better then the pics above and I'm using Hammer's blue led's with the black/white guage face and I painted the back of my needles white. Once I fix the burned Led's Ill have pics

[vatik]

I used wax paper behind the guages and I am using dooly's leds. THe light is quite uniform

[Jesse IL]

Originally posted by Chiznarles
really, where do you get this EL sheet? I've never heard of digikey.. how much would this cost?

and wouldn't it negate the need for changing the LEDs?

www.digikey.com

I think it is in section O or something. Would cost you about $45 for this setup. With this, the only thing the LED's will affect is your needle color. My setup will be: black gauges with white numbers. Mostly blue numbers at night, with some red. Red needles. I'll post pics when I'm done.

[B_Rock]

i need gauges...still havent decided between these or the ac's...

[00CericaRuss]

ok.. i printed out some test dots (like on the backs of the stock gauges... they dim the really bright numbers, so the 60, 120, 160 are much more bright... I haven't tried it w/some mylar for light diffusion, but I will this evening.. will have pics of the 3 diffusion methods later.

btw.. i'm getting some printed up on mylar as we speak.. should have them tomorrow or monday

[zcs626]

suh weet