Non Climate-control switch illumination?

[I-S]

http://www.askisaac.com/images/car/dash2s.jpg

You can see the three switches on the panel with the knobs on for the heater controls.

Those switches are for AC, rear/mirror demist and intake/recirc. Each one has an LED in it to show when it's switched on, but they also have a white illumination at night.

Well, in theory. They did when I got the car, but one gave up after about 8 months, and a second one has now. The switches still work, and the LEDs still light up, but the night illumination bulbs have gone.

I asked mitsubishi about this the first time and they said that the entire switch assembly needs replacing at £34+VAT. I'm not paying £80 or so to fix these two switches... I'm sure there must be a way to replace the bulbs.

Anyone ever done it? If the actual bulb can't be replaced I might try rigging something with a different bulb or white LED (no dimming then though...).

Any thoughts/suggestions?

[Big Ian]

abit off topic but.....ive saw a few post where folk say something along the line's of LED light/bulb's not dimming? ive fitted LED light's into the rear seating area of my BMW (nice blue one's) i spliced and joint them in to wire that feed's to lit up switches and the led's work with the dimmer to /yes might be different to what folk are meaning but just thought i'd share it with you :happy:

[I-S]

LEDs can be dimmed in two ways... current limiting and PWM control. Bulbs are dimmed by voltage variation. With a voltage dropping resistor, changing the voltage can have the effect of current limitation, but it will operate differently on a LED to how it will on bulb. The LED will go completely off once the voltage drops below the forward conduction voltage, and full brightness will be achieved over a quite narrow voltage range compared to a bulb.