I didn't manage to find this for a 2005 STI, just a statement that it wasn't possible since the control knobs themselves are green plastic. If this is already covered somewhere else I apologize.

1. Remove the shifter tray and remove the two screws underneath it holding in the stereo and ac control trim.
2. Remove the AC control trim carefully. I had to give it a good hard tug and use a plastic spatula to pry it out.
3. for the AC control, remove the hose going into it and the screws holding it to the trim. Unplug it then bring it in the house.
4. On the back of the AC controls on the white plastic cover, unhook the little two wire white plug, then unscrew the screws that hold the white cover on.
5. Unclip and remove the white cover, the controls should pop out and expose a circut board.
6. Remove the knobs themselves, just give a gentle tug and they'll come right off.
7. You'll see three small white squares in the bottom of each control, these are the LED's that light up the knob, they're white by default. I used paint to paint them red.
8. They won't be bright enough alone so you need to add an auxillary led for each control. I simply bought 3000mcd red LED's from radio shack, 3 for 2 bucks each. Be sure to lightly sand each LED to help them difuse the light more evenly. They should look cloudy instead of clear when done.
9. Get some of the thinnest wire you can find, VERY thin, run two leads under the black plastic that holds each of the knobs to the circut board. I had to use a very small screwdriver and gently pry the plastic up high enough to snake a small wire in.
10. Be aware LEDs are directional, hook them up backwards and they won't light.
11. Solder one LED for each knob using the leads you just fished under the black knob holder. Then solder the leads in series, positive to negative.
12. Hook up a resistor to the first led in the series on the positive wire going in.
13. Looking at the circut board from the knob side, you can see the backs of the pins for where the two main plugs plug into the board. Solder the resistor for the positive wire to the bottom leftmost pin.
14. Solder the negative lead coming out of the last LED to the top pin, second from the right on the set of pins for the first plug from the left.
15. Test it before putting it back together, if the leds light up, make sure the buttons push in fine and don't get stuck, I left the LEDs poking up just above the button in the bottom of each knob holder.
16. Put it all back together and enjoy the fact the lighting matches.

This can also be done for the radio and other knobs, that's documented pretty well by other people elsewhere.

One more thing, a handy tool is a resistor calculator to determine what resistor you need. I used the one at this link:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Bill_Bowden/led.htm

An update to the process. Using the ground pin directly above the power pin allows for dimming.

I now use two LED's to make the light more even and smooth. A 3000 MCD and an 800 MCD wide angle, both available from any radio shack.

Thanks for the info & pictures.
May have to do this mod this weekend.

would there be a problem if i used an LED of 10,000 mcd instead of the 3,000mcd as stated?

i purchased a pack of 10 LEDs from Fry's electronics for $3 but it does not say on there what MCD value it has. They had a 5 pack of 10,000 mcd LEDs for around $15 but I thought that it might be too bright. The ones i bought are 3volt and 20mAp, the 10,000 mcd ones wer 3.3 volts and i believe 25mAp.

I used some red oil paints tha had transparent characteristics to pain the original LEDs and they were nice and red but were very very dim.

can you elaborate more on the resistor? where do u connect both ends do? You talked about connecting one end to the first wire in the series, how about the other end of the resisotr. Btw, i have a 560ohm resistor, is that ok?

A 10000 will probably work but might be brighter than stock by a fair bit. It's all subjective how bright it needs to be.

A couple of thoughts though, I use two LED's now instead of one for more complete coverage, if it's a 10000 mcd LED, it will probably be a narrow angle LED and won't fully illuminate the knob, just the middle leaving a dark rim around the edge. Also at 3v, you have 3 of them, for 9v, add 3 more LED's at say 1.7v, you have 14.1 v. You probably could get away with a very small resistor. Check the normal voltage on the HVAC control to figure out what you need.

You have to calculate the resistor, no way around it. Good luck.

actually found this helpful, but modified it a bit. while painting the stock lights red maintains the original equipment untouched persay (cept some paint) and adding an led to assist in lighting all are nice, i removed the original lights by desoldering them, then soldered in led's (3 to each circular control). This maintains the dimmer function as well and really prevents the pcb from looking moddedwith wireing runing all over it. the led's i used where the same led's mentioned in the tutorial. all in all great info in original post. thanks

I don't see why that was not done in the first place. In reference to the above post about de-soldering the original LEDs and replacing them with red LEDs.

This wasn't done for a good reason. I tried something similar with the drivers side door window switches and it didn't work. I ended up having no success getting them to light and I couldn't figure out why.

Also I wanted to be able to return it to bone stock by just desoldering the wires and removing all the LED's and paint. Having had a warranty claim denied and having had to deal with all the BS of them cataloging everything that wasn't stock down to the tires and the radar detector, the easier the car can go back to bone stock the better.

When you tried that on the door how did you desolder the LED, desolder wick or desoldering tip on an iron? Perhaps you held the soldering iron the board for too long? Did you make sure to match the specifications with the LED you were replacing it with, volts & amps? If you were just using Ratshack LEDs then I'm almost sure they didn't have an exact match. For odd valued LEDs your best bet is to go through a on-line LED shop.

Anyway, your method works for you and that's all that matters.

It didn't work for me on the drivers side door I think because of voltage. I didn't have a way to test the green LED's I took off on the drivers side door for amps and voltage. I don't even know if the little LED's had built in resistors or the resistors were on the board. I tried putting a red LED in hooked up where the green one was, it didn't work, I didn't push it. I was already pissed when I realized I crunched one of the green LEDs when I took it off and there would be no way to return my door switch to stock.

So I came up with a different method, leave the stock stuff, solder around it.

It's not incompetence, it's choice.

An LED has a voltage rating, for red LED's it's usually 1.7-2V for Blue it's 3.2 to x I forget.

Anyways to go back to the HVAC controls, if you just solder in LED's without checking what the specs were on the ones you pulled out, expect to burn out the new LED's that you just put in there that are supposed to last 50000 hours in about 1000th of that time.

So the white LED you pulled from the bottom of the HVAC control, it may be a 4v at 40 ma LED, you put in a 1.7v at 20ma LED, you will burn out the 1.7v at 20ma LED. Worse still, it could in theory burn the board if done wrong and then you buy a new control. I put that as unlikely but if I'm doing it for someone else, as I have for many people, the last thing I need is someone telling me my mod killed their HVAC controls.

It's not incompetence, it's choice

I never said it was. I even said; "Anyway, your method works for you and that's all that matters." in my previous post.

My apologies, the web comes across as harsh, it's a bit different when you talk to someone face to face. Inflection can make all the difference in the world. I understand you're not calling the way I did the mod incompetent and what I wrote comes across as a bit defensive.

When I first did the mod I would have loved for a cleaner way, but I wanted the least risk method. This was it in my opinion.

edit to everyone....
you do not have to pry the black plastic up to get a wire underneath...
instead unsolder the two metal tabs you see holding it down...that gives you MUCH more freedom to mess around...they do not come off but open up a lot of room
then just press them down again to resolder them

So with the 05's Radio buttons it's simply taking the radio OUT and putting bulb condoms on it like with the 02-04's?

Is this correct?

Thanks,
-Nigel

I have my HVAC lights completly apart... this is a pain in the ass... It would be a lot easier if the buttons didn't have a green translucent plastic backing... now my red leds are not bright at all....

Yuck!

-Nigel

Hi all, I follow the instructions and now I'm stuck at the knobs. Can't seem to remove any of the three knobs to reveal the LEDs. I tried to use a little force to lift up the knobs but still stuck. Must I use more force??? Will the plastic crack?

I manage to pull out the knobs. I realise that the backing of the knobs is covered with green plastic. Is there a way to remove this plastic???
The original LED is white n quite bright, so i was thinking if i could just remove this green plastic and replace it with a red tint film. This way, I need not change or add LEDs then.
Anyone who has any idea what i'm talking about pls help me....

I manage to pull out the knobs. I realise that the backing of the knobs is covered with green plastic. Is there a way to remove this plastic???
The original LED is white n quite bright, so i was thinking if i could just remove this green plastic and replace it with a red tint film. This way, I need not change or add LEDs then.
Anyone who has any idea what i'm talking about pls help me....


Nope, that green is on there and part of the top of the push button...

Paint the white leds red and add seperate leds to add more light.

Here are two pics of what I did.

red colored flush mount leds..
http://www.wrxfanatics.com/uploads/post-34-1134796915.jpg

two extra leds that I cut the tops off to difuse the light more and sanded them down as well.
http://www.wrxfanatics.com/uploads/post-34-1134796964.jpg

-Nigel

Thanks...so there's really no way to remove the green plastic...
Do you have a pic to show clearly how to connect the wires to the main power supply? Tried to follow the instructions, but there are simply too many pins.
And also, what is the voltage and MCD of your LEDs? Did you add any resistors? Anyway your LEDs looks v neat. Did you solder it onto the board?

I got a real phobia of soldering now, cos i blew my LEDs of my driver's power window. I manage to change the LEDs to red and it was working fine until i try to do something extra. Now my circuit board on driver's side is not working properly...driver's power window cannot go down and no lights. Need to look for a replacement.

Thanks...so there's really no way to remove the green plastic...
Do you have a pic to show clearly how to connect the wires to the main power supply? Tried to follow the instructions, but there are simply too many pins.
And also, what is the voltage and MCD of your LEDs? Did you add any resistors? Anyway your LEDs looks v neat. Did you solder it onto the board?

I got a real phobia of soldering now, cos i blew my LEDs of my driver's power window. I manage to change the LEDs to red and it was working fine until i try to do something extra. Now my circuit board on driver's side is not working properly...driver's power window cannot go down and no lights. Need to look for a replacement.


Nopers, no way at all to remove the green, I even tried removing some plastic with my dremel to find that if I keep doing it I would have gone completly through the damn push button...lol

http://www.i-club.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=32749

Easiest thing is the first two pins on the FAR LEFT side... power is the bottom pin, and right above it is it's ground..... by soldering to the above ground pin will enable you to "dim" if you chose so..

The first LEDS I used were from my computer modding supplies... they were 15,000mcds... very freaking bright, problem is I forgot their volatage so I guessatmated and used a resistor that made them too dim... Most LEDs are around 2v...

I ended up getting different LEDs but honestly do not know the mcds because they already had the resitor soldered inline to them...

Use this tool.. I use it EVERY time I need to solder in leds for computer modding or leds in general:

http://led.linear1.org/1led.wiz

Makes it SUPER easy to figure out the correct resistance to use so that the LEDs do not burn out prematurely!

I soldered them onto the power and ground points... looking back at it I would have ran all the wires to the back of the unit rather than the front for cleanliness of the unit... but that's if I do another one... this was a two day affair for me because I ran into many problems... but now looking back at it I could do mine again much quicker!

Hope I helped... feel free to ask anymore questions if you get stuck along the way... :-)

-Nigel

Thanks Nigel for your help. Finally managed to get the job done. In the process, I burnt one fuse and one resistor.
I am still wondering how did you guys manage to snake the wires inside the knob? Your wires must be freaking thin. What I did was I melted two holes at the bottom of the black plastic with my solder to snake the wires in.
It was really a hassle for me........but at the end of the day when I look at my red interior, there's something to smile about.
The only switch that is not as bright red as the others is the levelling switch for headlights. Anyone manage to do that?

I never thought about putting holes in the plastic... I actually might change and do that! Right now my knobs angle down about 2 degress and I had to dremel the bottoms of the rings out slightly so that they didn't rub... can't really tell but the main thing is that they are RED :-)

http://www.wrxfanatics.com/uploads/post-34-1134795269.jpg

-Nigel

You must be really careful if you want to put holes in the plastic. I made two small holes right at the bottom, touching the PCB. I was actually quite frustrated trying to snake the wires in by prying the plastic. I simply cannot do it. Thus I took a risk n try to melt the plastic with my solder iron. To my surprise, it melted easily. Then i use a sharp pincer to make the hole bigger.

I am going to do this mod in the next week or so as I got the LEDs in the mail yesterday but I wanted to clear up a few things. I got 3500 mcd leds that are 3mm instead of 5mm but have a 45 degree viewing angle so that should be wide enough... or I can lop the heads off for more diffusion. Anyway I was going to use a very small drill bit and drill holes in the black plastic near the bottom to thread the wires in. My questions are similiar to the above poster in that I will use the bottom leftmost pin for power but the ground that everyone is using is the one right above it? (instead of the one on the top row over the right like in Ardinos pic). If I put two 3500 mcd lights in there but don't paint the stock LEDs do you think I will be OK as they seem to be white anyway? I will be sure to post detailed pics up here when I finish for people doing this in the future.

Can we wire the LEDs with the cigarette bulb instead of soldering any wires in the green chip?

sure you could but then you would be

a: running a crap load of wire instead of just using the wiring that is already there

b: forfeiting the dimming switch function

the dimming switch does not work on the HVAC it only work on the clock, the temp and the trip KM.

but do you think that this wire will be more strong the will allow for better LEDs without loosing its brightness

how close in color is the red of the hvac in comparison to sti speedo cluster? How much does the green plastic of the knob cap distort the red led's light?

the dimming switch does not work on the HVAC it only work on the clock, the temp and the trip KM.

but do you think that this wire will be more strong the will allow for better LEDs without loosing its brightness


My completly dimms on all 5 levels of illumination... what did you do to yours that it's not dimming?

-Nigel

i beleive i miss understood you.

is the dimming switch is behind the steering wheel in the light switch but they only 2 levels?

or may be i donot have this option of 5 levels dimming

my car is impreza 2005 1.6TS

so the source voltage is 12.4? I'm guessing the voltage on the HVAC CB is regulated?
Nigel,
do you know the voltage on the solder points you recommend?

On the steering column, the paddle on the left.. should be able to twist the little ring to have it dim and get brighter... my 03' wrx when I had it was identical to my sti now... turn for 5 different levels of illumination.

The output voltage of the positive lead on mine was reading 12v-12.3v
So it's safe to say 12v power.

I did it exactly how he has it pictured for the positive (power) soldering point and right above it is it's ground that when you combine the two you have have it dim and get brighter with the rest of the cluster, radio lights.

:-)

-Nigel

can someone list down all the parts they used for this? i'm not sure if i have everything that's needed for this.

i can do the red light mod for anyone fully fuctional and dimming for any 05+ hvac with parts and return shipping i can do it all with my parts included (leds, resistors, wiring soldering ) and have it shipped back to you for 60$

if i need to pay the site for any seller fees pm me and let me know

I realize this thread is very old, but i've just now got around to doing this mod. I went with 3000 mcd LEDs and have everything wired as instructed. The LEDs will light up but when in the car they are so dim that it doesnt look like they are even on. I tried the LED's with a 9v battery before putting them in the car to make sure they were wired correctly and to get an idea of how bright they would be. However with them in the car they aren't even close to the brightness using the battery. I did remove the reisistor from the chain b/c it dimmed the LEDs quite a bit (used a 470 ohm) so i'm wondering if that could be the problem, but seeing as they are very dim I dont see how adding the resistor would help. Maybe I have overlooked something, and should anyone actually read this and have any suggestions it would be very much appreciated. Thanks.

If you tested the led's individually with a 9V battery (and they were only 2 or 3.6 volt LED's) you more than likely burned out the junction and they will forever be dim. Either that, or you added too much resistance thus dropping the voltage across the leds too much.