GOLFMK8
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GOLFMKV

DIY Blue Needle + LED Swap

thetimefarm

New member
Location
New Hampshire
I posted this on vwvortex a little while ago but my account on this forum just got approved so I'm posting it here now that I can.

WARNING: Some parts of this mod are very delicate so I would only undertake it if you’re very confident you can do it, this isn’t a project to learn on. These are sensitive devices and you need to be careful when working on it, one wrong move will break it so you need to be sure about every action you take. Please familiarize yourself with every step of this guide as well as the information linked below before you attempt this. I can’t guarantee this will work and am not responsible for broken clusters. If something goes wrong I will try to help with trouble shooting but ultimately anything you choose to do is your problem. Multiple pieces of the cluster CAN AND WILL BREAK PERMANENTLY if moved the wrong way. Elements of the immobilizer may be housed inside the cluster, so replacing the cluster may need to be done at the dealership which as we all know means big money. Someone on the MkV forum said they got their cluster repaired but I have no idea how to do that and they were in Croatia so I am going off the assumption a broken cluster is dead for good. Repairs would require at least a semi functioning circuit board to salvage parts off of, which other than being a pain to source is probably still expensive. Ok, deep breaths, here we go.

Preface: I would like to start the guide by thanking Darkside on the MkV forum, this guide is simply a verification that his tutorial still works. They’ve done a more thorough write up and answered many questions other MkV guys had, I’m linking it below along with some other useful resources, and I’d strongly suggest reading the whole thing. It as it will give you a better idea of what this project involves. None of this would have happened if I hadn’t found their post so most of the credit should go to them. I normally take pictures and measurements but I was too stressed and focused on not breaking stuff to remember on this project, I only have the photos I took for my own reference which I will attach. The circuit board itself hasn’t changed much so I will link to the aforementioned MkV thread for more pictures. This guide will focus mostly on the actually LED swap because most steps to this project have been covered in other guides so for everyones sake I will just breeze over the rest of it to keep this short.


I did all my soldering at 600 F with a 0.062 inch flat tip, it was a little big for this task but it was easier than using a very fine point. The smaller tip couldn’t retain enough heat to reach the pads underneath, if you’re careful you’ll probably be fine with . I used Kester 44 60/40 for this whole project and did not clean the flux off the board, whether or not you do depends on personal preference and choice of flux. I was more worried about hurting the actuators than the flux, from what I’ve read Kester 44 is fairly inert under normal conditions. I live on the New England seacoast so if anyone will have problems it’ll be me, so far I haven’t noticed any issues, but only time will tell the full story, if my cluster ever dies I’ll autopsy it and update this post accordingly. Finally, I have an NAR car, I assume the clusters are similar on ROW cars but I can’t be sure, if anyone tries it on an ROW please let us know how it works.


Guide

To begin you need to pull the vent trim on each side of the wheel, the one closest to the drivers door is fairly easy but the trim around the center vents and infotainment unit is a pain. The majority of it is one piece that runs from the climate control nobs up to the vents and requires a lot of prying to pop all the clips. Next the trim over the gauge cluster can be pulled, it’s one piece so just work around the edges gently and be careful not to slip and scratch the clear dials like I did. The vertical edges on each side will be fairly easy to reach but close to the center is difficult because of the recess the whole assembly sits in, I used a long thin screw driver to slide behind it and pry closer to the middle.

Theres a little bar of trim just under the cluster, right behind the wheel, it’s about a foot long by half an inch tall, behind it there are two screws that secure the whole cluster to the dash. After that it’s only held in by four clips, but these aren’t the normal trim clips, they’re like the roid raging older brother to those clips. To put this into context, I tied a loop of parachute cord around each side of the cluster, then I held those and leaned back while standing on the dead peddle. I weigh about 165lb and was putting basically all my weight on it. I snapped the top corners off the lip running around the cluster, it’s only purpose is to clip in the front trim so it’s not the end of the world if it breaks. Eventually I pulled on one end only, not expecting it to work, but it did. As you might expect that sudden jerk snapped the clips on other side but also cracked the top of the clear plastic cover. I think the case must have deformed briefly before the clips snapped and that is what broke the plastic, but after getting it back together I found the front trim covers the crack so it’s not visible.

Finally there is a power plug with a swinging purple lever which pushes up parallel with the back of the cluster, however it has a detent bar that needs to be pushed down before it will swing. It plugs in on the tachometer side of the cluster so if you pull the center console end out, you can see the plug and reach in to unlock it.

Once it’s out of the dash you can remove the screws on the back, I believe they’re T10, and unclip the clips on each end. I used a screw driver to pop the clips because they’re tucked behind other pieces of the case and hard to reach. Then the front and back halves separate leaving the circuit board with the gauges clipped around the edges. Mark where the needles sit before you take them off so you can calibrate the new ones, then pull off the red needles while twisting counter clock wise. They are on the spindles very tightly so you need to pull hard, but always apply force counter clock wise (opposite of their normal travel), turning them clockwise will break the motor as far as I know. Basically you twist it like you’re taking out a screw and you need to do it anytime you touch the needles. I found a pair of pliers with taped jaws worked well to remove the smaller needles from the gas and temp gauges.

With the needles off, the white plastic gauge assembly unclips and lifts off of the circuit board, at this point the LCD is only held on by a ribbon cable on the top of the board, it has a normal ribbon cable connector which slides and puts pressure on the cable. I just popped it up with a screw driver, if you’ve ever worked on a laptop you’ll have probably used these.. Next I suggest plugging the circuit board into the car and taking a video of the lights as they are stock, I just turned the key to the ON position and most of the lights came on. Whether or not you swap any other lights is up to you, it should be the same process for the rest of the LEDs but keep power consumption in mind and use LEDs with similar voltage drops to the ones you’re replacing. If someone is really ballsy they might be able to switch a resistor to change the voltage going through the new LED.

Now you’ll need to remove the LEDs you want to replace, I suggest swapping them one by one and testing in between. I had problems with a few of my lights and trouble shooting is much easier if you only need to worry about one LED at a time. Flowing fresh solder under the chip before removal helps the heat reach the pads, the lead free solder is tough to melt and sits under the chip where it’s hard to reach. When testing make sure to clip the plug, the purple lock needs to be up most of the way in order for the cluster to receive power, there is a sweet spot near the top where it engages the plug not but the detent bar making it a lot easier to remove. This plug will become a lot clearer when you see it, you can get a good view of it when you swing the cluster out of the dash.

I used LED’s housed in the PLCC2 SMD package, their small size makes them hard to handle and I found them to be fairly fragile. I basically ended up discarding one LED for every one I swapped, I went through about twenty LED’s so keep that in mind and order extras. I’m probably being over cautious, if I had to take a chip off the board for any reason I discarded it. I found repeated heating caused them to crack more often so I decided wasting a few cents worth of LED’s was worth it for the peace of mind.

Each LED gets four pads on the board which suggests it may work with PLCC4, but I’d assume programming would be required to give them any extra functionality. I treated each pair of pads like one and bridged them with solder, it makes no difference since the PLCC2 contacts jump the pads regardless of solder. I haven’t noticed any functionality loss, dimming still works fine which was my main worry. The tight spacing on the board can make some of the pads difficult to reach, pinning one side down with a little solder seemed to work the best. Holding them in place with tweezers can break the chip if you aren’t careful.
The PLCC2 package has a flattened corner to denote the positive end, make sure you line up your LED in the same polarity. Soldering it in backwards won’t hurt anything but obviously won’t work either, if an LED isn’t lighting reflow the solder before swapping polarity. I had a few times where I thought I had the polarity wrong when really a solder joint was bad, it can be hard to tell just by looking at it whether or not you have a good connection.

Remember to reattach the ribbon cable for the LCD and lay it in place before reattaching the plastic cover, it just slides in and the lock bar gets pushed back down. The white plastic clips back on fairly easily, the spindle holes and LED diffuser tunnels need to line up so just make sure everything is in the right place before pushing too hard. Then the new needles push on just like the old ones, remember to spin counter clockwise when you push them on and as you adjust them, the same direction they came off in. I recommend putting it down flat on a table so the actuators have some support from behind otherwise you might pop them off the back of the board. Once they’re pushed onto the spindle twist them counterclockwise until they all line up with the marks you made previously.

Then the casing can go back on and the screws put back in, they’re all the same so they’ll work in any hole. The assembled case can be plugged back in and tested before being clipped back into it’s mount. The cable for the cluster is short so I needed to put the plug end in first then reach in from the other side to attach it, this might actually be easier to do from the passenger seat (LHD cars only).

I didn’t take any measurements but the new LEDs are much brighter than stock, I can see them glow in the day even on the dimmest setting. Though not mentioned in the listing, the needles I ordered came with a strip of PLCC2 LEDs. Before doing the swap I used a 9V battery to compare them to those I had ordered and found the ones I bough were much brighter at any given resistance. I chose these LEDs in particular because they were the brightest I could find, so I’m not surprised or afraid that it’s drawing more power than normal. Running them on a dimmer setting is probably healthier for the rest of the components on the board as well.

I am new to the forum so I’m still learning how things work but I’ll try to respond to questions either here or messaged. I want to reiterate though that this is a hard mod and you only get one chance, so if your questions seem too basic I may just advise you not to try. Several people on the MkV forum broke their clusters doing this so the danger is very real. I don’t want to be a dick to anyone because I’m sure everyone could learn to do this, but like I said at the start, this isn’t the kind of project to be learning on.


Darkside’s MkV Guide: https://www.golfmkv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=113135
Extra Pictures: https://www.golfmkv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=113135&page=6
Cluster Removal: https://www.golfmk7.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18880&page=2
Gauge Light Diagram: https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img921/4420/YOxi9Y.png
Needle Lights: https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img921/8943/D4zJ6Z.jpg
 
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