SMD Conversion

Matt

Booked the car in for a blue SMD conversion in the new year

Should look like this when done

rushy

Very nice mate, who's doing it for you?

MikeS

keep off smd's matt, stick with single leds buddy

as u know smb/ smd's they are muti bulbs within the bulb holder

my experience is that one bulb will fail within months and cos it is on the dash it will flicker like mad until it dies and u lose a bit of brightness

look for crazyleds

https://www.crazyleds.co.uk/home.php?cat=44

took me about an hour or so to strip down the vectra and replace bulbs but as it was a vectra B the leds were in bulb holders already

also get some leds for your rear number plate lights, looks mint

my whole car is near enough led'd now 🙂

Matt

rushy said:
Very nice mate, who's doing it for you?

Stampede from AON is doing it for me. Same bloke who fitted my Cruise Control.

MikeS said:
keep off smd's matt, stick with single leds buddy

as u know smb/ smd's they are muti bulbs within the bulb holder

my experience is that one bulb will fail within months and cos it is on the dash it will flicker like mad until it dies and u lose a bit of brightness

look for crazyleds

https://www.crazyleds.co.uk/home.php?cat=44

took me about an hour or so to strip down the vectra and replace bulbs but as it was a vectra B the leds were in bulb holders already

also get some leds for your rear number plate lights, looks mint

my whole car is near enough led'd now 🙂

Given the bloke who is doing this has done over 70 of these conversions, and had no issues, I've got 100% confidence in him doing the work for me.

Having seen what is involved in doing these conversions, there is no way I'd take on anything like this.

rushy

I'd imagine the Astra is SMD only, the Vec C is. I did my own and there are no normal LEDs.

Matt

VXRMarc's Burg interior being done

Now one thing i seriously am unhappy about with new cars especially Vauxhall is orange lighting.. I decided before the car turned up we had to have a Burg Day and arranged for 3 cars to be ready for my good friend Daz better known as vxrcourt3 the lighting specialist to come down from Cleethorpes for the day to change everything over...

He has mastered the art of doing this safely and is possibly the only person i would trust on my car electrically to do a job like this....This is generally expressed as anyone who can solder can do it but i beg to differ...I have seen work by authorised auto electrical companies try to achieve this with the canbus system and have seen the outcomes aswell....:wall:

So we all arrived early and waited for Daz to arrive from his hotel

Daz got to work on my car and started to strip the interior

Due to haveing a double din he had already done my radio headunit supplied with the vehicle as i had sent it to him previously.

All my centre console was now stripped out

Next was the speedo and instrument section

All stripped this included doors and roof aswell

Daz then set about stripping all the individual parts

and the instrument section taken apart

to reveal all the Surface Mount Diodes

Daz then marked all the smd,s with a small pen to show the correct polarity.

This is one area many people fail when doing this as they break the wafer thin ribbon to the screen

All apart and ready for soldering

Now i have to be honest these smd,s come in 3 sizes and i thought they were small but they are ridulous...Daz uses a special soldering iron for his due to the fact they are miniscule....one slip and the circuit board is a goner...

This is a typical example of the size of some of the smd,s as you can see between the two red arrows.....Now imagine trying to solder that onto a circuit board....Daz has very steady hands and the risk of a new £700 instrument panel should he slip....This is why trust him and no one else....

Checking each one as he goes before and after...all 120 of them.

Once it is all finished everything is fitted back together

and checking before i set off...(This is his normal driving position..😃)

and all back together...time taken 4 hours

Typical Vauxhall Before

And after on mine

Matt

rushy said:
I'd imagine the Astra is SMD only, the Vec C is. I did my own and there are no normal LEDs.

Yep, it is mate

MikeS

Astra H requires soldering, if u cant solder then u cant put leds in lol

Vectra B was plug and play

Matt

MikeS said:
Vectra B was plug and play

Same as the Astra G. That looked shit when I did mine, as there was filters built into the dials, and turned the blue green.

MikeS

should I take that as an insult ?

Matt

MikeS said:
should I take that as an insult ?

?? Take what as an insult ??

BURT150

That looks brilliant when done but what a job it must be to do :wtf: . Would take some serious steady handedness!

rushy

Yep its not a job for the faint hearted. My screen alone has something like 36 of the little blighters in there.

Matt

rushy said:
Yep its not a job for the faint hearted. My screen alone has something like 36 of the little blighters in there.

Hence why I want to pay Stampede to do mine for me. He'll also be activating the speed dependent locking on the Astra, as it's not a standard feature on the Astra like it was on my Vectra.

rushy

I cant do it on my Vec either, some do some dont. On the vec it was just a case of pressing the lock on the key at the same time as the door look button. Although I had a working TC button just by adding the £8 switch, most vecs its a deffo no go. The Joys of Can bus. I presume the Astra if full Can?

Matt

rushy said:
I cant do it on my Vec either, some do some dont. On the vec it was just a case of pressing the lock on the key at the same time as the door look button. Although I had a working TC button just by adding the £8 switch, most vecs its a deffo no go. The Joys of Can bus. I presume the Astra if full Can?

Yes mate, full CAN.

You can't even activate the speed dependent locking using Tech2 on the Astra, as it's locked out of there. Can only be done using OPCOM/VAUXCOM apparently. TC didn't work on my Vectra, but the switch illuminated when fitted.

sdbutler10

very nice matt how much does he charge for this?

vocky

feck :wtf:

that guy doing three on the trot, he is brave :wtf:

Matt

sdbutler10 said:
very nice matt how much does he charge for this?

To have everything done, it's about £180, but as I don't need the stereo doing, it's about £140 all in.

Not bad really, considering it's about 6 hours work.

Sjdickso

As said what a task!

should look great when done.