NICE! Any chance you'll be able to test these with white LEDs? I'd love to see how it looks in the dark. I'm excited about this because I hate the white-background style clusters.

 

I have a picture when I was testing out LED light strips. Still not sold on using LEDs in any of these things, minus the clusters that were built for them, but thats just me if I can find it, or if not, I'll take another and post.

 

See this guy's post here in the Dash Lights Mod thread...

https://www.cherokeeforum.com/f2/xj-...0/#post2346328

That's a TJ cluster, and he swapped white LEDs in it, and it looks pretty amazing. By far the best one on that whole thread, no offense to the other guys.

 

We've been away, but busy:

Here are a few photos of the new setup. This is a torn down gauge:


This is the new back plate:



Here it is assembled:



The difference? these are not used:



This nets us no light leakage around the indicators, unless I design it in:


(I used an LED flashlight to show this, my power station is buried on the workbench)

The current batch is painted, laser engraved, and then laser cut, bonded, and shipped. the full production run of these and JK gauges will be done up as a screen print that is laser cut.

It will be a higher price, but a better product overall. As far as I know, we are the only shop offering fully personalized gauges for the XJ that are not some cheap stick on piece. Ive argued with some industry reps that told me to sell all of these for $100 minimum, but thats not my style. For our stock offerings I will still be offering the old kit at the same price, and the nicer kit for slightly more due to the cost of materials and time.

We also plan on offering a full on custom shop where the sky is the limit, to show off some truly nice gauge sets. I have a CJ5 gauge inbound that we will be working on to show off, a set for a 96 XJ that will really shine, and retrofitting a JDM race style setup to a US Mazda RX7.

 

That looks AWESOME! Great work...now can we see it lit up soon?

 

Tomorrow probably

I'm in class till 9, and then cutting after that. The laser cut versions are slow going right now

 

Are these available yet? (The black background etc)- If so, I need one without the ABS light. This is pretty sweet- I don't know how I haven't see these before!

 

Here they go:

 

I am working on cutting out a matching lower panel where the switches are for the rear defroster and such.

A full set of the HD will run $80 plus shipping. That gives you a matching gauge, AC panel, and a matching power / switch panel for the 97-01 XJs.

Lead time on these is about a week, I currently reserve time on a laser cutter / engraver in order to make these, each set takes a bit of time to paint, dry, engrave, cut, clean up, assemble and package.

Once we have our own laser in house (look for that kickstarter!) we will be able to get production runs up and get these out the door much faster.

Email me if you are interested. I will be taking orders soon as the lower panel pattern is finalized.

 

Awesome thanks for the quick reply... Im not sure what color scheme I would go with- Love the black gauges.. Any chance you can do a red based background? Red Background- Black gauges.

 

2 problems with red. First, it is hard to get teh warning lights to come through correctly. Would not want your CEL sitting on and you cant tell.

2nd, it lessens your sensitivity to warning lights outside the vehicle. If you have red light shining at you all the time, the split second longer that it takes your brain to catch the new red light (like a brake light) in front of you could be the difference between a fender bender and a bad accident. Im a visual communications guy comign from a safety signage background, so you can see my concern there for you the end customer and whoever else might be on the road.

Shame of it is, my printer has a fantastic chromatic red cartridge that keeps our inks from fading. I could do a darker red, but not a bright in your face red.

 

Gotcha. I understand- I was thinking to go with the White LEDS so the lights would all be white. I will get back with ya- the darker red might work perfectly. I just have to see what it would take to replace the ABS light with one for my ARB. Ill hit you up soon!

 

Cool

Oh, the color of the warning lights is dictated by a colored lens (and that hardware is from a TJ).. see the first pic here: https://www.cherokeeforum.com/f10/az...6/#post2757053

Also, LEDs just plain suck in the long run in an XJ. They were never designed for it, and tend to burn out. Sylvania double life standard bulbs work great, and should outlast the XJ at this point.

 

Still around, just been busy setting up our new workshop. We had a lot of questions about the standard vs HD gauges, and thought we could better explain it in a short video.

 

I'm going to have to disagree with you there. LEDs are an improvement all around. I understand that the clusters weren't really designed for it, but I've seen some stock ones that turned out really good with LEDs. They will come loose before burning out. I'd think that with your ability on these custom gauges, you'd have a lot more flexibility with getting LEDs to work, but it appears that you have no interest in doing so, and that would hold me back from these products you're offering. Just my .02