So I finally got around to the lighting issue in wrx. As usual I should have checked this site before starting. If I had I would have seen the *****in post with the 2 dollar direct replacement bulbs. But instead I went with a very old faq that I had saved which used led's and resistors from radioshack. The hvac ones worked fine so my logic was that the instrument cluster would do fine using the same bulbs. Wrong. I saw blue for about half a second before they all went dark. And despite my best efforts It's still blackout on my gauges. Luckily I still had my indiglos to put back in so I would'nt be in the dark. My troubleshooting consisted of replacing the bulbs with new oem's, trying new carriges, checking fuses in the car and under the hood and checking the actual circut board for any sign of burns. Still no luck. Any idea's?

 

I just replaced them. But, the other items on the fuse worked fine. So I'm pretty sure the continuity is intact. All other bulbs on the gauge cluster work fine. And if I use one of the originals in a working slot everything is cool. So all bulbs and carriges are good. It's a mystery to me.