Change the color of your 00-02 Tahoe/Yukon AC control backlights with LEDs

Ok, most of you have already seen my thread on how to change the color of you power window switches by adding LED's. Now heres how to do basically the same thing to your AC control panel.
First off, remove the AC control panel from the truck. Now carefully pop off the 3 control knobs. Now open up the switch by removing the four 1/4 inch hex screws on the back.


Now carefully release the tabs holding the circuit board in the white part of the contol panel, work your way around until it comes loose.


You can also unscrew the bottom board from the front panel by unscrewing the two 1/4inch hex scews.
The 4 stock bulbs on the bigger circuit board are wired in two pairs. Each pair is wired in series. So you will need to unsolder all 4 bulbs and on the two that I have circled, put a 330ohm resistor on the positive lead.

Here is how you want to configure the resistor into place. So it will line up the the two pinholes in the circuit board just like the stock bulb.


Stock bulb on the left, LED and resitor on the right.


After you solder in your LED's with resistors, follow the tracer on the circuit board to the bulb next to it. That pin is where you will solder in your positive lead for the next LED, ground in the other pinhole. Here is a shot with the two right ones done.


Now all four done.


Now you can move on to the smaller lower panel which lights up the buttons.
I've seen other sites say to do these with 3mm LED's (as the stock bulbs are about 3mm) but I put 5mm LED's and they fit just fine.
For the lower panel, you will need to solder in a 330 ohm resistor inline in the second wire from the right. This wire feeds the positive to all four of these bulbs.



Now simply unsolder the stock bulbs, and solder the LED's in their place. The thin tracer wire on each bulb is the positive lead. On these, I had to do a little trial and error getting the LED's tilted on a slight angle to fire at the button for the best possible light output to each switch. Heres the LED's in place.



Now all are done.


Now you can put the switch back together and go check it out in your truck. Here is a pic of me testing it on my 12v power supply.



Here are a few pics of mine installed. The pics are crappy, I couldn't get the glare off the camera for shit! These pics do it no justice.

Your good at this stuff. Looks good, alot better than stock color.

if i shipped you my ac controls + som $$ would you do this for me?

---------- Post added at 10:53 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:48 PM ----------

actually i think i already talked to you about this on GMFS haha

STEALTH said:

if i shipped you my ac controls + som $$ would you do this for me?

---------- Post added at 10:53 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:48 PM ----------

actually i think i already talked to you about this on GMFS haha

Click to expand...

Sure, just let me know when you're ready.

Good stuff, much appreciated.

How do you know the positive lead on the LED bulb pins?

Can you link us to the equipment you use to test?


B

BOSS said:

Good stuff, much appreciated.

How do you know the positive lead on the LED bulb pins?

Can you link us to the equipment you use to test?


B

Click to expand...

I just used a Digital Multimeter to test for voltage on the AC panel. You can test it while its still hooked up in the truck, or use a 12volt power supply. The Grey wire in the wiring harness that plugs into the AC panel is the positive wire for the illumination (power to the bulbs). Trace the circuit from that pin to the light bulbs along the circuit board, thats your positive. The grounds are all tied together, so its easy to spot on the circuit board. If you test the legs at the bulb with power applied, it will read 5.5 volts. That confused me, so I looked closer at the board, and thats how I figured the bulbs were wired 2 bulbs in series. Thats why you only need to put a resistor on the two bulbs I circled in the pic above. As far as the LED's themselves, the longer leg is the positive, thats the one you wanna solder your resistor to.

looks great awesome write ups! I would love to do this mod but would be a little worried about doing it on my 04 using this 00-02 thread. They look almost to bright tho is there anyway to get them dimmer like the originals, i know you could just adjust the knob but i would rather not because then in my readout on the instrument cluster will be to dim for me

Husker1111 said:

looks great awesome write ups! I would love to do this mod but would be a little worried about doing it on my 04 using this 00-02 thread. They look almost to bright tho is there anyway to get them dimmer like the originals, i know you could just adjust the knob but i would rather not because then in my readout on the instrument cluster will be to dim for me

Click to expand...

As far as the brightness, I mentioned before that they aren't nearly as bright as they look in the pictures. The camera picked up tons of glare for some reason. This pic is probably the most accurate on how bright they are.

But if you still wanted them a bit dimmer, you could alway go with a larger resitor value and that would make the LEDs light up a bit dimmer.

+1 on sending it you with some $ and doing it for me. IF you want the work.

Whats the difference between these than a 03 up. They look the same to me when i pulled mine out and looked at it. but not sure..

Tahoewhat said:

Whats the difference between these than a 03 up. They look the same to me when i pulled mine out and looked at it. but not sure..

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Actually, as long as you don't have the digital screen on your 03+ AC panel, it is pretty much the same. I'm not sure if the bulbs are wired in series or not, but I know they are soldered to the board in basically the same fashion.

Where are you buying your LEDs? I replaced all my lights in my truck with Leds from Superbright, i used the cool whites. Any idea what LEDs I would need to match the look of them?

Seems pretty simple. Been wanting to do the A/C controls since I did the cluster.

PUNKYOU007 said:

Where are you buying your LEDs? I replaced all my lights in my truck with Leds from Superbright, i used the cool whites. Any idea what LEDs I would need to match the look of them?

Seems pretty simple. Been wanting to do the A/C controls since I did the cluster.

Click to expand...

For LED bulbs, I've bought them from V-LEDs.com For the bare LEDs I use in the Doorswitch and AC panel conversions, I buy them from Oznium.com. You can buy LEDs pre wired with resistors already, or just plain bare LEDs as well.
When I do AC panels, I use the bare LEDs since the resistors are different values. I use 330 ohm resistors in the AC panel since the bulbs are wired in series.

For those of you who want LEDs in your AC panel and interior switches but arent comfortable soldering, I can probably do them for you. Just PM me.

Dude, This is a badass write up!!! Thank you very much for taking the time to post this up. Well written and the pics are great!

Couple of quick questions.....
Which one of these are the positive and which is negative? I get that only need a resistor on the circled pair, but which hole is +? Looking at this from left to right?


I just did my speedo, lower AC controls and door switches, but didnt know where to put the new LED's on the upper dash AC controls. Dont want to mess it up soldering in and out. lol

Also,
I have not taken it down, but are the overhead AC controls the same.?


Thanks again Bro, I am half way there thanks to your post.

Awsome write up man.... i resoldered all my switches and stuff like 4 months ago. I wish i had one of those little power supplies like you have, i had to run outside, plug in the switches and touch the leds to different sides to figure out what side was +/- haha.

---------- Post added at 06:59 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:56 PM ----------

And lance.... this is what my upper ac controls looked like in the end. I used leds that didnt need resistors and ended up having to add a bunch more so there werent dead spots.

Ok I know I'm super late but are the digital controls way different and are they just too complicated for an amateur to tackle?

rc610 said:

Ok I know I'm super late but are the digital controls way different and are they just too complicated for an amateur to tackle?

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Yeah, the digital controls are different. Just slightly different though. The install is very similar. I did digital controls for a member on here, Z-56HOE.

Got all my LED's for my 2002 Tahoe. Going to work on it tonight I'm very excited to have it finished soon. Thanks for the fine write up on this.

are the stock bulbs 7443's?