[Zoomad75]

I've been thinking about doing the full LED thing on my cluster when I upgrade to my tach cluster. I've read Chevychic's write up a while ago. So from that I understand the need for the dimmer to have a different resistance range due to the lower internal resistance of the LED's.

I was at the boneyard the weekend before last and picked up an extra headlight switch for expermintation purposes. My first thought was to add another rheostat in line that would be gear driven off of the knob shaft. Howver after looking at my spare, it would be complicated and probably not very durable. Thinking more about it, my next Idea is to install a resistor inline to the dimming circuit. I'm not sure how much resistance to use though. My thought is by adding resistance to the circuit, you take your existing resistance value and move the range higher up the scale depending on the amout you add in.

For example (don't quote me on values as I haven't put my ohmmeter to it yet), lets say the stock dimmer works through a range of 0 to 100 ohms and that's fine for stock incandecent lightbulbs. by adding say a 500 ohm resistor your values for the dimmer would be from 500-600. You still have a 100 ohm range, but now it starts 500 higher.

What I am not sure and will find out when I test it is, would cutting the availble voltage to the LED's by and extra resistor also limit the maximum brightness of the LED's at the full high setting? My other concern is how much heat might the resistor generate? I don't want a possible fire hazard by a resistor getting too hot.

My goal is LED lighting that works off of stock looking controls. I'm kicking around using UV (blacklight) led's for a real stealth look that just the needles and lettering pick up the light. I might get a set of white or blue too just to see what looks best.

I'm welcome to input if my idea seems off base. (it's 5:40 am for me right now)