# Next CC project.....



## charles charlie (May 3, 2008)

Well I'm waiting for warmer weather to look into the door lock and auto window close stuff. 

In the meantime the issue with failed cluster lights has gotten me thinking about a new mini project.

So I got hold of an R35 cluster and have it in bits.



















Initially I'm not gonna fix the illumination issue as there is a 5 year warranty from Nissan on this but I can do this if required.

Ill be converting the LCD area from amber to blue so that us 09-10 owners can mimic the 2011s.

Ill keep this thread updated with pics as I go.


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## andrew186 (May 3, 2010)

Great stuff love these type of threads! Good work cc!


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## Adamantium (Jun 24, 2002)

whilst in pieces how about a box to stop the damn reversing beep!!!!!


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## Tin (Aug 15, 2010)

Adamantium said:


> whilst in pieces how about a box to stop the damn reversing beep!!!!!


Yep, beep that!


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## G2GUV (Dec 16, 2012)

How come I don't have this beep???? 



Adamantium said:


> whilst in pieces how about a box to stop the damn reversing beep!!!!!


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## charles charlie (May 3, 2008)

Annoying reverse beep from MY11 onwards.

I had a chat with Brian at Car Kit Co about the very same and we concluded it would be a faff to sort out. We'd need a relay to kill power to the beeper so this would be a pita to offer.


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## Verinder1984 (May 8, 2011)

Hi,

love the idea of the blue dash - pretty cool stuff.
any estimation on price im going to be saving the pennies from now!


as for the beep - im beep less and love every BLEEPING minute of it. Bleep + reverse parking sensors = Lame but LOLZ


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## FLYNN (Oct 6, 2006)

charles charlie said:


> Ill be converting the LCD area from amber to blue so that us 09-10 owners can mimic the 2011s.


Great stuff. Dont know why the amber bothers me so much, but it does.


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## grahamc (Oct 1, 2006)

charles charlie said:


> Annoying reverse beep from MY11 onwards.
> 
> I had a chat with Brian at Car Kit Co about the very same and we concluded it would be a faff to sort out. We'd need a relay to kill power to the beeper so this would be a pita to offer.


Stupid question, but cant we just "break" the beeper?


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## buzzysingh (Nov 19, 2012)

What do you think the chances are of getting any colour? Like.. Green?!


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## robsm (Jul 22, 2008)

good work, count me in.


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## Satan (Mar 8, 2012)

charles charlie said:


> Annoying reverse beep from MY11 onwards.
> 
> I had a chat with Brian at Car Kit Co about the very same and we concluded it would be a faff to sort out. We'd need a relay to kill power to the beeper so this would be a pita to offer.


My 59 plate beeps in reverse too. Does this mean something has been replaced?


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## Adamantium (Jun 24, 2002)

Nope, both of mine did too.


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## Protegimus (Aug 31, 2011)

grahamc said:


> Stupid question, but cant we just "break" the beeper?


There are no stupid questions - unfortunately the same beeper is used to warn you that your door is open and more useful that the transmission is not in park when you leave the car, or you've left your lights on.

Protegimus


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## charles charlie (May 3, 2008)

My bad. Seems the beep was introduced randomly from some point in 2009 then.

I'm sticking with just using blue at the moment as the LEDs I want to use are best in blue (highest quality and reliability).


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## charles charlie (May 3, 2008)

Protegimus said:


> There are no stupid questions - unfortunately the same beeper is used to warn you that your door is open and more useful that the transmission is not in park when you leave the car, or you've left your lights on.
> 
> Protegimus


Absolutely correct. 

Brian and I toyed with idea of killing power to the beeper when reverse is selected but it means running wires and relays to the back of the cluster. It just wasn't a viable way of providing a working solution that anyone would want in their car.


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## mitre3 (Nov 11, 2012)

Had blue and red in previous cars I will go white next something nice and crisp


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## Anders_R35 (Jul 20, 2011)

Andy I just emailed Nissan Japan your address, expect a container full of clusters at your practice in a few weeks :chuckle:


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## Satan (Mar 8, 2012)

charles charlie said:


> Well I'm waiting for warmer weather to look into the door lock and auto window close stuff.
> 
> In the meantime the issue with failed cluster lights has gotten me thinking about a new mini project.
> 
> ...


CC

Are there loads of SMD's that create the backlighting then, or am I not seeing the board correctly?

If that's the case, you would have to change each individual SMD to get the effect I assume?

Can you get a close up picture of the board please?

Cheers


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## p.bro64 (Oct 4, 2012)

Another great project, will be watching this space........Well done CC.


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## FLYNN (Oct 6, 2006)

Satan said:


> Can you get a close up picture of the board please?


Also wouldn't mind a close up of the LCD area if at all possible.

I wish I was good at this stuff..........sigh


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## charles charlie (May 3, 2008)

Each part of the cluster has carefully placed smd's so this photo shows the most common failed one, which is 2 that illuminate the fuel gauge. There are separate domed smd's for illuminating the needles.









The LCD area is illuminated by a long strip of 9 smd's 










I've some blue ones on order so ill have a play over the next week or so. Then ill swap one on my car and see what goes bang


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## charles charlie (May 3, 2008)

Anders_R35 said:


> Andy I just emailed Nissan Japan your address, expect a container full of clusters at your practice in a few weeks :chuckle:


That would be most helpful buddy!!

Did you know Nissan orders HPCs to destroy any failed units? Seems a shame when they can be fixed.

Anyways, onwards and upwards


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## Anders_R35 (Jul 20, 2011)

Have a measure of the volts at the fuel gauge LEDs, there must be a reason why that one fails when they all look the same brand LED? May be too many volts or not enough...


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## Zed Ed (Oct 24, 2007)

Very impressive Andy


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## saucyboy (Nov 1, 2009)

CC, great work mate. I make sure to follow this as blue sounds great


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## charles charlie (May 3, 2008)

Honestly I'm not gonna bother pursuing the reason for the failed illumination as the most logical explanation is over voltage or current as the same diode position fails often.

Swapping the colours over however should be straight forward and hopefully reliable.


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## Hellski (Feb 3, 2012)

As others have already said fantastic work and look forward to following your progress, something else to add to the upgrade list:thumbsup:


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## robsm (Jul 22, 2008)

how long do you expect before this is available CC?


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## charles charlie (May 3, 2008)

robsm said:


> how long do you expect before this is available CC?


Honestly it depends buddy.

I have to swap over the smd's followed by an extended period of testing on my own car. After that I'll know what the likely cost will be and turnaround time. 

Given you can't drive your car without the cluster, I'm a little wary of offering this until I'm damn sure it'll work 100%, 100% of the time. I also need to be sure that I can put the cluster back together again so that it's as good as new.

That usually is the hardest part of this type of mod as its easy to leave the dial needles all over the shop.


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## robsm (Jul 22, 2008)

Is it a straight swap if i wanted a MY11> cluster on my MY10?


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## charles charlie (May 3, 2008)

robsm said:


> Is it a straight swap if i wanted a MY11> cluster on my MY10?


As far as I know yes but there are no tech docs in the wild which allow anyone to check.


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## Kabz r35 Gtr (Sep 27, 2012)

I'd be very interested in changeing my orange light to the blue one.

Or maybe a different colour?


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## Satan (Mar 8, 2012)

charles charlie said:


> Honestly I'm not gonna bother pursuing the reason for the failed illumination as the most logical explanation is over voltage or current as the same diode position fails often.
> 
> Swapping the colours over however should be straight forward and hopefully reliable.


CC

Is that just a case of swapping out the strip of 9 SMD's then, to go from Amber to Blue i mean?

Satan


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## charles charlie (May 3, 2008)

That's what it looks like so far.

There's a diffuser behind and the smd's shine onto the side of it. Quite neat solution imho and should make modification easier.


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## Satan (Mar 8, 2012)

charles charlie said:


> That's what it looks like so far.
> 
> There's a diffuser behind and the smd's shine onto the side of it. Quite neat solution imho and should make modification easier.


Great work:bowdown1:. 

Will be very interested to see how this goes.

The only issue I can see is Nissan wriggling out of the 5 year warranty thing because it's "moddified"!

Not saying that would stop me of course!

Top work as we have come to expect from you.:smokin:


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## FLYNN (Oct 6, 2006)

charles charlie said:


> That's what it looks like so far.
> 
> There's a diffuser behind and the smd's shine onto the side of it. Quite neat solution imho and should make modification easier.


If you were to swap out the clusters, complete, any idea if they need anything, or would be basically be plug and play?


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## charles charlie (May 3, 2008)

@Satan

That's a good point buddy.

There is no way an HPC can tell if a cluster has been opened as there are no seals on the casing. If it did fail, we could easily swap over the smd strip for an original one and bob's your uncle.

@FLYNN

Sorry buddy, what exactly do you mean?


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## FLYNN (Oct 6, 2006)

Using the cluster you have just bought. Could you just swap, like for like, with no issues. Or will something have to be done. On Consult III perhaps.


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## charles charlie (May 3, 2008)

Ah I get you.

Well in the whacky world of Nissan you can just swap them over, no consult III needed. However the mileage shown will be the mileage of the cluster not the car. The flikr data will still hold the true mileage though.

My idea is just to swap out the smd strip with as fast a turn around as humanly possible.


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## Satan (Mar 8, 2012)

charles charlie said:


> @Satan
> 
> That's a good point buddy.
> 
> ...


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## FLYNN (Oct 6, 2006)

charles charlie said:


> Ah I get you.
> 
> Well in the whacky world of Nissan you can just swap them over, no consult III needed. However the mileage shown will be the mileage of the cluster not the car. The flikr data will still hold the true mileage though.
> 
> My idea is just to swap out the smd strip with as fast a turn around as humanly possible.


Well, if you need a guinea pig, as well as yourself testing. Ill have no quarms doing this. Im only down the road in Sheffield as well, so cant be too far away 

Will you be making new boards, or swapping the SMD's?


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## charles charlie (May 3, 2008)

May take you up on that Flynn. Sheffield was my old stomping ground for around 9 years, lived in Broomhill.

I'm gonna swap out the smd's first and if that goes all balls deep then I'll make a new board. I'm hoping the swap is straight forward as faffing around with making pcbs is tedious.


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## FLYNN (Oct 6, 2006)

charles charlie said:


> May take you up on that Flynn. Sheffield was my old stomping ground for around 9 years, lived in Broomhill.
> 
> I'm gonna swap out the smd's first and if that goes all balls deep then I'll make a new board. I'm hoping the swap is straight forward as faffing around with making pcbs is tedious.


Just up the road from me.

Pm sent


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## GTaaaaaarrrrrr! (May 4, 2006)

Nice work CC, keep it up


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## David.Yu (Jun 28, 2001)

Another very cool mod. I was disappointed when Indie told me I couldn't get a MY11 blue panel when mine was swapped.

As I reported in EVO, luckily my replacement cluster did NOT come with the reverse beep, as I already have ultrasonic reverse sensors so double beeping would drive me mad!

But it was the tacho backlights that packed up on mine, not the fuel gauge. They went out sequentially over a long period of time and would occasionally fire up, but ended up dying altogther.


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## Turbotwo (Jan 28, 2011)

Any news?..this is a great project.


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## grahamc (Oct 1, 2006)

yeah, any updates on this??


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## Firestarter (Mar 8, 2014)

I'm also waiting with Gusto!!!

Cheers
Louie


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