Anyone familiar with these? I'm thinking about making a change to my gauges. Any other ideas also appreciated.
If they are in fact LED behind the gauge cluster, you should be able to simply replace them with a similar size LED in the color of your choice. However, this will require some skill with a soldering iron and good soldering technique to pull of. I have not pulled apart a gauge cluster from a new monster, but I would be interested in seeing the inside. My concern is that they use a method similar to what is in digital watches to illuminate the gauges. If this is the case, your only option would be to swap gauges from another bike with the red gauges. Unless you have red gauges, then your only option is white. If they are LEDs, let me know as I would be very interested in doing this to my bike as well. But until I know for sure, I'm not pulling my gauges apart. Good luck!
Somebody has already done this. I remember the thread. Might be in the How to's
See here or Ask He Man
http://www.ducatimonsterforum.org/index.php?topic=24497.0 (http://www.ducatimonsterforum.org/index.php?topic=24497.0)
Duck off, What year is your Monster? That is important info as to whether or not you can change the color of your gauges. If you have an older monster, you can do it quite easily as EEL has pointed out. I assumed you have a newer monster, which could prove to be a bit tougher to do.
Mine's a 2005 620 Dark ???
there are services on ebay that will swap out the leds for you. if you aren't comfortable using a precision soldering iron, I wouldn't do it myself.
So wait I'm confused do I need to solder considering my bikes a 2005 620? I thought the older Monsters were plug and play for the bulbs. Either way I'm good with the soldering I've done a ton of that in my life its removing the bulbs in the gaskets from the casing that has me concerned. That sounds like it could be a pain in the ass requiring a good amount of force on a delicate part.
Hate to break it to you, but there are no bulbs in your 2005 620 gauge pod.
There are, however, about 6 surface-mount LEDs.
When they switched gauge pod styles (I wanna say 2002-ish, but I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong) they went from using bulbs, to using SMT LEDs.
I feel very confident in saying that your gauge cluster uses SMT LEDs.
To change them, you're going to have to desolder/resolder them. If I remember correctly, He Man did that part of it. But I think he also had issues with getting the needles back to doing what they were supposed to do.
Thanks for the update. I think I'll stick with working gauges instead of Red or Blue Gauges for now and keep looking for some cheap used OEM gauges I can experiment with.
this is what is involved. Isnt hard at all, even if you dont know what you are doing. :P
Desoldering Ducati Monster Gauges (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iSTPAJg57w#)
Thanks HeMan that was very helpful. Were those the LED's you were removing? Can you then just solder the new LEDs in same spots on the circuit board where those were? Any recommendation on LED's to use or where to purchase.
Thanks!!
You can get LEDs at RadioShack along with a soldering iron, de-soldering braid, and some good flux core solder. Take apart an old peice of electronics and PRACTICE de-soldering and re-soldering some of the components. Just watch out for capacitors. They are the typically black, grey or blue drum shaped things or flat tan discs. They hold a charge and some can pack a nasty punch. Once you get some practice, go for it. It's really not hard, it just takes some patience, care and precision. [thumbsup]
The soldering and resoldering is not a problem for me. I got a EE and have done a shit load of soldering. Its the mechanical aspects of taking apart the gauges, disconnecting the cabling and removing the gaskets holding the bulbs and then even more so putting it all back together that makes me nervous.
I took apart the gauges on my 620 Monster and it was a breeze. it uses a rubber grommet to seal out the weather. Just curious what color are you going to change to? I went white everything went smooth. The numbers still show as normal but the needles turned pink and the displays are now white. To remedy that the pink needles i cleaned of the paint off the bottom and re-painted with some red paint i had left over from a model kit.
I've had my gauges apart a couple of times and the hardest part is removing and putting the needles back correctly and without breaking them.
my advice is to send it in for replacement in the off season, or get a cheap, crashed cluster off fleabay to practice on and to have extra parts.