heeman10

In my Fiesta I have AutoMeter Z series gauges; black face, black rim and red needle, and a bulb in the back to illuminate the face. I chose them so they wouldn't look too "aftermarket", but in reality, the illumination serves only to show a dim ring around the outer edge of the face. It's not enough to actually see what my boost, oil temp and oil pressure gauges are telling me, which I don't like!

Please could anyone with well-lit gauges put pics up and say what they are? I don't want shiny silver ones, the more subtle the better, but I'd consider EL ones just so I can see them by night. The main problem I see is that the two oil gauges are in my A-pillar, and I think bright glowing EL gauges there could be distracting Thanks

big_wig_074

blitz do some nice black faced ones
http://www.blitz-uk.co.uk/gauges.html

Tony Turbo

My Defi's are bright

AndyRST

My Autometer lunar boost gauge, i dont have any problems seeing that in the dark Made for people who cant afford Defi's :

heeman10

big wig - Yeah there are some nice ones there

Tony - Yours did look well-lit, I thought that at the time you posted up your air liner cockpit

Andy - They're the nicest EL gauges AutoMeter do, just not quite to my taste in the day time

I'm going to the Autosport International show tomorrow so will be having a very good look around, and possibly sniff out some bargains

Tony Turbo

LOL Thanks

They are too bright at night when driving on an un-lit road, I have to turn them down.

MK5RST

Heeman, just posting this as im not sure how clued up you are with wiring..... theres 2 wires on the autometer gauges.... One to be wired to an ignition live and the other for the backlights in the dark, the ignition live only lights them up very dimly, try wiring both up to an ignition live and see if it helps

heeman10

Tony - Ahhhh now we're talking, brightness control would be very handy. That's precisely the problem I'm talking about...too bright and it's hard to keep your eyes fully-concentrated on where they need to be

Pete - There are three actually! Ignition live, lights live and lights earth The illumination wires on the three gauges are hooked up to the dash lights live, earth is obvious, and ignition live is obvious. Is this what you mean? The ignition live is not the same as the illumination live on mine the way I've wired them up.

twitchyrear

check richardpons for sale bits dash lights up sweet

CosKev3

Try using some LED's to light them m8,alot better

Put blue ones in mine,pic does'nt do them justice really,not too bright either

Tony Turbo

I know that is just a pic, so could well be different for real, but how on Earth do you see the needle?

heeman10

twitchyrear - Will have a look for those bits

Cos kev3 - As Tony says, they look a bit dark, just as mine are now. They need to be bright enough to see in a quick glance. Can't look across, wait for eyes to adjust then search for needles and numbers! They look nice, but not bright enough

CosKev3

As I said in post 'pics don't do them justice'
Plenty bright enough in the real world

Tony Turbo

There you go

Graceland

SPA

heeman10

Tony - They look absolutely perfect However, I checked them out at the show today, and Ł160 plus VAT doesn't sound like money well spent for one gauge to me! They're brilliant, and I love the features, but I find that hard to justify! lol

Graceland - I want analogue gauges matey, digitial aren't fast enough to read and understand (i.e. glancing at a needle is a simple case of "that shouldn't be that far over" rather than seeing a number, then asking yourself if it's usually higher or lower for oil temp and pressure). Thanks for the pics though, they're certainly a good way to stop things getting cluttered!

EssexBoyRacer