otoh, this isn’t as silly as it sounds, put the LEDs in a plastic tube (or inside some silicone tubing) and run coolant oil through that, then mount the assembly in place of the CCFLs on a conventional surplus LCD panel as edge lighting.

/me scuttles off to try this…
Inspired by this and someone’s PC mod.

back then they were over $9 each, & theres a special power supply that can run up to 12 of these in series… I use 3 of them… they were around $30 each… I think the prices have come down a bit since then, theres newer stuff out now….

someone mentioned the cree’s.. great lights there, but they weren’t even available back when I did this…. that & you’d never get enough dispersion trying to just use 8 or 12 of them, edge lit maybe, but not rear lit….

optics & projection patterns come into play too, as well as distance… you have to focus an even overlaping pattern or you’ll just have a bunch of hot spots, meaning more diffusion necissary, meaning even less available light

something like this could be done with a fan instead of the liquid cooling, if you don’t mind a fan that is… to be totally passive & burried in a dash would require too much surface area of the heatsink, & in a tight spot like that it would eventually get heat soaked, you would at least need some airflow I would think…

these lights are better the cooler you can keep them, & there life span is directly related, as well as there brightness level, which diminishes as there run too hot… mine will last many years & maintain there brightness decently at least….

this may be a bit overengineered, but it’s built to last & work well for a long time

Thanks

akmixdown, you can see the fabrication I did better in another screen that I did:

http://mp3car.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=85350

also guys, keep in mind that a digital photo isn’t the best way to really see the results of a really bright screen, in person this screen does look great… a regular lcd will be impossible to use in direct sunlight… it can be bad enough that you can’t even tell if it’s on or not even… this mod I did was to be able to see & use the screen even under the brightest conditions, & the end results are that the screen is usable at all times… I can see it during the day even with my sunglasses on, which was the original goal of this project…

From what little I know of automotive repair, working with bondo (bumper putty, etc…) is that it involves a *lot* of wet sanding with fine grit sanding blocks. It’s easy to screw up, takes a lot of time, and probably as much practice; but it’s also easy to fix mistakes (use more putty).

I’ve never heard of doing this for interior work, as I reckon it’s messy as hell; so he probably removed the center console bits and did it in a shop.

Another technique is to mold and cast like this guy did:

http://homepage.mac.com/reelmagik1/PhotoAlbum3.html

(apologies if that’s been posted here before)

I can see he built up the areas he cut up with some kind of bumper epoxy and then sanded it down, but there’s got to be more to that, especially when it comes to smooth, straight edges.

ps-japroach: luxeons were at that point 35 lumens/watt, they are now 50 (with the Luxeon V).

Yeah, I’m interested too! :>

A bonus of the LEDs is that they can provide a wider color gamut over CCFL. That would partially depend on the color filters in the LCD, but I’m sure the results would look stunning.

In the end he went with a boe-hydis HT12X21-210 wide-angle LCD, which he claims he doesn’t even have to use the LED mod for, but when he does it looks *stunning*.

He doesn’t sound like someone who is arrogant to me… but anyway.