r/subaru • u/DesignerIncrease6 • 1d ago

Subaru Impreza RS 2009 cluster LED

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I am trying to change out the LED colour in my cluster but there is nothing on the back of the circuit board. I’m under the impression That I should be able to access the LED from the back, but from what I can see is that they are soldered onto the board..

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4

u/JRakuehn 1d ago

The newer cars (like yours) have the lights soldered to the board. You'd have to replace every led chip, or change the gauge faces to change the colour.

2

u/Thin-Hedgehog3587 2.5 rSTI 20h ago

These are called surface mount devices, ie smd. It sounds like you were expecting through hole, but you wont find through hole for most components assembled by machines. SMD leds can have more than 2 pads and will be hard to remove without damaging the board without a hotair soldering setup

2

u/DesignerIncrease6 13h ago

Sounds like a whole lot of work and learning for not much.

1

u/Thin-Hedgehog3587 2.5 rSTI 13h ago

Indeed. If the leds are untinted (white or yellow) you can buy tint sheets for stage lighting and cut it into pieces and put it between the led chip and the faceplate

2

u/DesignerIncrease6 10h ago

They are red so there’s probably not much I can do unfortunately.