[Teh Wicked]

Been trying for the past 2 hours to change my amber LED's on the radio console to blue ones. Well needless to say im not a skilled soldering man so now my "seek" button is no longer illuminated and my fingers are burned all to hell. I have plenty of electrican experience and im figuring my soldering iron was my main issue for not being able to complete the install. I have a Craftsman 45 watt unit and its not exactly a super precision tip that it has with it. I kept melting the new LED's when trying to install them. Had a couple attempts at getting them soldered in and when I would try and power them up they would never come on. So after 2 hours of battling the 2 LED's for the seek button and no victory i called it a loss and put it back together.:crying:

 

[Walrus]

You need an iron with less power.
45 watts could probably repair a radiator tank and is way too big for small electricals.

 

[Teh Wicked]

Im going to goto radio shack tomorrow and get a pencil iron with less power and hopefully a smaller tip. Then I hope I can fix my radio LEDs...

 

[TurboDA6]

If you are trying to be cheap, get a Antex soldering iron with a 106 or 107 tip from eBay. Radio Shack irons are garbage. The Antex irons are awesome for SMD work and they are cheap.

 

[jpsst38]

When I did mine, I had a crappy Radio Shack iron. And the tip was none too small either. Part of doing those lights is ensuring the cathode inside the LED is on the right side.

 

[Teh Wicked]

When I did mine, I had a crappy Radio Shack iron. And the tip was none too small either. Part of doing those lights is ensuring the cathode inside the LED is on the right side.

Care to elaborate a little more on that? So these LED's need to be installed a certain way for them to work?

 

[deerslayer]

Care to elaborate a little more on that? So these LED's need to be installed a certain way for them to work?

Pm johnblaze..............

 

[jpsst38]

That is correct. You will note a little indent on the bigger LEDs that go onto the gauge board which is the indicator of which side the cathode is on. The smaller LEDs like those which make up like a gagillion on the radio board have an indicator as well. I can not remember what it was on the ones already installed on the board, however, the blue ones I used to replace the amber ones had a green band under the LED itself which was the indicator.

 

[Teh Wicked]

Alright, finally found me a small tip adjustable iron. at the lowest setting the iron is 20 watt and adjustable to 45. And it has a pencil tip as well, so hopefully I can make this work now.

 

[jpsst38]

Good Luck to you. Hopefully the new iron works.

 

[TurboDA6]

Anyone have a link to the write-up for the stereo LED swap?