interesting......I didnt know you could turn up your brightness of the oem backlight...how do you do that???

 

It only helps so much. If you see how these were made it's easy to see why. They used SMD led's, and they are decently bright, but they sit over an inch lower than the faceplate. Had they chose to use 5mm through hole led's the lights would be easily bright enough to be seen in direct sunlight. Or, if cost reasons made them use SMD, then they should have put plastic lenses on top to bring focused light up to the top. They do have shrouds around them to prevent leakage light, but that doesn't help bring all the lumens up.

I took my led's off and will put through holes on it. Just bend the leads over a bit, solder to the SMD pad and hot glue in place to hold it. Also, with the 5mm package, it appears i can get about 5x brighter lights with the same voltage/amp draw. It should be extremely obvious now when a light comes on.

I originally took this all apart to replace the faceplate. The stock faceplate is plastic, and melts in hot sun. Same with all the aftermarket faceplates I find. They look terrible too. I am making mine out of titanium

Once the finished part comes in, if anyone is interested I might be willing to make more. I could even add custom logos. Changing your LED's like I am probably isn't for most, it's a bit challenging... but I do wonder if I could have some lenses made. I thought about 3D printing them, but not sure how that would direct the light. They would probably have to be injection molded. But, with lenses, you wouldn't have to de-solder the LCD to get to the solder pads... it would be a simple drop in when you pop on your faceplate.

 

 

Well I over did it I think. New Led's installed. They hurt my eyes!! Going to have to add extra layers of tint to these now lol. They're so efficient that the dimming control doesn't even do anything to them. Oh well, if it's a problem at night I will take it all apart again and add in a little photo sensor to control day/night brightness. But for now, there will not be any issue seeing what the bike is telling me in the daytime!!!!!

It was a pain because you have to fully desolder the lcd panel. It's fairly small pins and delicate. I didn't have any problems though, and it works great.

 

Also new bezel final design!