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I recently picked-up an '05 Silverado for an upcoming project build. I was quite surprised at how many interior lights were burned out. It seems like literally half of everything is out... HVAC, dash lights, steering wheel, door panels.... all of it has about half the lights working. Weird. Chevy thing?
Anyways, I love the truck thus far otherwise. Seeing how others have had great success with the LED swaps, I figured it was time to do it myself. I've got hundreds of LED's in my office from previous projects over the years, though very few of the flat top ones, which seem preferable for this application. Ordered 100 blue LED's from Amazon on Thursday night, received them today (Saturday). Didn't take much time to perform the actual soldering. One LED failed upon power-up, but that was quickly replaced. I went ahead and setup a power supply on my desk so I could work on it in the comfort of my office while testing it.
Another issue with the dash was the gear selector display (PRND321) was not working. From forum reading, it seemed to be a common problem with the 511 resistors coming unsoldered. Sure enough, that was my problem as well. Using a small screw driver, I lightly pried on the sides of them to test for bad connections and a few actually lifted up with minimal pressure (which definitely should NOT happen when properly soldered). I went over all 7 of them to ensure solid contact. A quick run out to the truck to test it proved the fix to be successful!
Ok, picture time...
Right off the bat, here are the before and after photos of the dash. Notice that my needle alignment is pretty much on par! (sans the RPM gauge)
![stock_dash.jpg]()
![finished.jpg]()
The blue LED's I got off Amazon for $8.88... bag of 100 (I usually get them for just a few $ from China, but I didn't want to wait this time!). The 475 ohm resistors were $5 from a local company.
![leds_resistors_475.jpg]()
The first fix was the PRND321 display. You can see the 511 resistors circled in blue. The brownish marks around them is just the residual flux from soldering.
![resistor_fix.jpg]()
Prior to removing the gauge needles, I was very careful to rotate the needles fully counter-clockwise, then marked where they were pointing. I know this isn't a 100% way to do it, but it works.
![needle_line.jpg]()
This is right after soldered the blue LED's in. As can be seen, one of them has failed and subsequently was replaced.
![dash_blue_leds.jpg]()
For powering the board, you can use the denoted pins... one is ground (pin A12), the other (pin A11) can be fed anything between 0-12 volts or so. Pin A11 is the "Instrument Panel Lamps Dimming Supply Voltage", so you can simulate the trucks dimming feature simply by changing the input voltage. I had a handy digital voltage regulator (buck converter) that allowed me to do just that.
![connector.jpg]()
Anyways, I love the truck thus far otherwise. Seeing how others have had great success with the LED swaps, I figured it was time to do it myself. I've got hundreds of LED's in my office from previous projects over the years, though very few of the flat top ones, which seem preferable for this application. Ordered 100 blue LED's from Amazon on Thursday night, received them today (Saturday). Didn't take much time to perform the actual soldering. One LED failed upon power-up, but that was quickly replaced. I went ahead and setup a power supply on my desk so I could work on it in the comfort of my office while testing it.
Another issue with the dash was the gear selector display (PRND321) was not working. From forum reading, it seemed to be a common problem with the 511 resistors coming unsoldered. Sure enough, that was my problem as well. Using a small screw driver, I lightly pried on the sides of them to test for bad connections and a few actually lifted up with minimal pressure (which definitely should NOT happen when properly soldered). I went over all 7 of them to ensure solid contact. A quick run out to the truck to test it proved the fix to be successful!
Ok, picture time...
Right off the bat, here are the before and after photos of the dash. Notice that my needle alignment is pretty much on par! (sans the RPM gauge)
The blue LED's I got off Amazon for $8.88... bag of 100 (I usually get them for just a few $ from China, but I didn't want to wait this time!). The 475 ohm resistors were $5 from a local company.
The first fix was the PRND321 display. You can see the 511 resistors circled in blue. The brownish marks around them is just the residual flux from soldering.
Prior to removing the gauge needles, I was very careful to rotate the needles fully counter-clockwise, then marked where they were pointing. I know this isn't a 100% way to do it, but it works.
This is right after soldered the blue LED's in. As can be seen, one of them has failed and subsequently was replaced.
For powering the board, you can use the denoted pins... one is ground (pin A12), the other (pin A11) can be fed anything between 0-12 volts or so. Pin A11 is the "Instrument Panel Lamps Dimming Supply Voltage", so you can simulate the trucks dimming feature simply by changing the input voltage. I had a handy digital voltage regulator (buck converter) that allowed me to do just that.
