Alfa Pages

[Wizz]

Hi guys.
Soon after getting my '33, I found that the lightning in the instrument panel wasn't that good.. I started out by dismounting all the light bulbs in it, and then measure all of them using an Ohm-meter, to find the ones that would give off the most light. I would then stick these behind the speedometer and the rpm-indicator, since I deemed they were the most important ones. ^^
However, since the indicator arm is really nothing more than a piece of plastic, given an orange coat of paint - it was still quite hard to see at night.
So I had another idea. I got my hands on some UV (Ultra-Violet) LED's (Light-Emitting Diode, like the ones that go in VCR's etc etc...). Now, I think you all know the effect UV light has on white objects? Like in disco's, where you have these so-called "Black-Lights", that make ones white Tshirt look all funny and glow blue'ish.
I mounted two of these behind the glass in the instrument panel.
I just wired them up to the existing electrical net, using a couple of risistors in order to feed them the correct current.


This is the result:


(All pictures taken using my cell phone.. hence the quality)
The UV LED's come on when there's ignition on the car. During daylight, you can't see that the LED's are there, so they don't cause any problems there. And at nighttime, they really help, it's so much easier to spot where the indicators are. (Actually not a good idea, when mum is sitting next to me, I've discovered... "You're driving too fast!" )
_________________
//Wizz
Alfa 33, 1.5 IE (1992) (Series 3)... now with 1.7 IE

[BILL]

Disko inferno !!
Good job Wizz ,i'd put a switch to have a BLACK PANEL (like SAAB has, and my Julia ),for the speedometer.

[ugly]

hi

hopefully the glass panel on the dashbaord prevents the UV to get you sunburned...
i dunno why you can't see the gauges, on my 33s i never had problems, i just replaced the bulbs when they failed.
i guess you perhaps just need some good glasses?

regards,
ugly

[Ben_nz]

That's cool! Looks very modern, reminded me a bit of the Lotus Elise dashboard:

http://users2.ev1.net/~lapsmith/main/images/elise/elisespeedo.jpg
but yours is easier to read!
I like the feeble green illumination (non-adjustable brightness, of course!) of my S2 instrument cluster, because its 'old and dodgy' look suits the car.