led lighting instrument panel
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Junior Member
Joined: Sep 2009
Posts: 46
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From: Adelaide South Australia
ML320
led lighting instrument panel
For those who are interested, I have replaced all of the idiot lights and illumination lights with LED's.
For those who want to stick with MB looking parts, locate "neo wedge" style LED's. For those who just want lights, get hold of T5 led for the idiot lights and T5 & T10 SMD style led's for the illumination. Now for the tips. The sockets and bulbs that FORD dash pods use are useable in the MB dash and the ford style comes with wedge style light bulbs, not fixed as they are in the MB's. So grab a hand full of these sockets and your T5 led's. toss out the globes and fit the LED's. With the illumination lights you need the white SMD style as they throw light to the side of the fitting, to go through the light channeling plastic. If you use normal LED's, all the light is forward and not to the sides, so it will not illuminate anything. Secondly match the colour of the LED to the idiot light you are replacing, ir red led for red idiot light, green for green, amber/yellow for amber lighting. this is for the odd fact that a "white" led is a fixed wavelength of light and doesn't "contain" much light of any other colour, so it wont light up a amber panel as well as a dedicated amber LED. Thirdly the LED's are polarised ie they have a +ve and -ve connection and looking at the led gives no clue. Just stick them in , turn on and see which ones don't light up. You cannot damage them by reversing the connection. Just pull the LED swap 'round the socket, or the LED, reinsert and away you go. LED lighting for a few bucks. It cost me about $15.00 for above 43 led red, green, amber and white and about $5 to $10 for the socket from the junk yard.
Have fun!
Post script, watch out when replacing the tail lights with LED "bulbs" the standard stop light bulb on the ML320 is a dula point 21/5w white globe. the problem is that on all of the worlds cars the socket is designed for a globe that has locating pins 180 degrees apart, the Mercedes is 0 to 200 degrees offset, hard to find!
For those who want to stick with MB looking parts, locate "neo wedge" style LED's. For those who just want lights, get hold of T5 led for the idiot lights and T5 & T10 SMD style led's for the illumination. Now for the tips. The sockets and bulbs that FORD dash pods use are useable in the MB dash and the ford style comes with wedge style light bulbs, not fixed as they are in the MB's. So grab a hand full of these sockets and your T5 led's. toss out the globes and fit the LED's. With the illumination lights you need the white SMD style as they throw light to the side of the fitting, to go through the light channeling plastic. If you use normal LED's, all the light is forward and not to the sides, so it will not illuminate anything. Secondly match the colour of the LED to the idiot light you are replacing, ir red led for red idiot light, green for green, amber/yellow for amber lighting. this is for the odd fact that a "white" led is a fixed wavelength of light and doesn't "contain" much light of any other colour, so it wont light up a amber panel as well as a dedicated amber LED. Thirdly the LED's are polarised ie they have a +ve and -ve connection and looking at the led gives no clue. Just stick them in , turn on and see which ones don't light up. You cannot damage them by reversing the connection. Just pull the LED swap 'round the socket, or the LED, reinsert and away you go. LED lighting for a few bucks. It cost me about $15.00 for above 43 led red, green, amber and white and about $5 to $10 for the socket from the junk yard.
Have fun!
Post script, watch out when replacing the tail lights with LED "bulbs" the standard stop light bulb on the ML320 is a dula point 21/5w white globe. the problem is that on all of the worlds cars the socket is designed for a globe that has locating pins 180 degrees apart, the Mercedes is 0 to 200 degrees offset, hard to find!
