Finally after a lot of research with no results, I took my switches (the ones that weren't working) back apart and started with my multi-meter taking resistance readings. This is what I found in 4 out of 5 that were not lighting up:

I took the illumination card off of the posts, flipped it over and found that the solder joints for the RESISTOR were cracked in 3 out of the above mentioned 4. I re-soldered them and "BUDDHA BLESS!" In the 4th one I found a circuit path was cracked that goes to one side of one of the LEDs. The 5th I've found that one of my new LEDs was bad. Now ALL of my switches light up! More pics of the new colors to come when it stops raining.

I'm also attaching a pic of the underside of the card for reference. Anyone needs any help, let me know.

J

 

The third is my 4WD switch, if you couldn't tell.

 

looks good. getting ready to do the same to my truck. nice mod

 

Very nice, thanx for the pics

 

where did you get the leds from?what kind of leds? and how hard is it actually to do?

 

I don't want to offend anyone here, specially you JBeasley, but this mod wouldn't be one of the easiest to do since it requires some soldering. If you haven't soldered before than this would be a really tough project. I also wouldn't recommend this project to be how you learn how to solder, you can really mess something up.

 

No offense at all. As a matter of fact, that's a great tip. Don't try to learn to solder on this project. I got some of the LEDs from oznium.com (smt leds) and the rest I got from ebay. The ones from ebay were 0805s or 0806s. I can't remember which.

 

Did you have any problems using the Oznium SMT's for this application? That's where I got mine from, but until this cold weather breaks I won't be outside taking my switches out

 

The PLCC-2 type from oznium.com won't easily work in the switches because they mount upside down and shine through the hole in the illumination cc. I would suggest getting something like the 0805 off of ebay. Even with the 0805 you're going to have kind of a rough time mounting them as they are VERY small (roughly a third of the size of the PLCC-2).

 

I've got it down almost to a art, lol the hardest part is getting to old ones off without breaking the foil trace that the led is mounted too! once the foil trace breaks your hate'in it. That's why I've been buying spare switches for parts!!

I bought some purple led's to do my wifes Escape, I can fit 8 on the top of a pencil eraser!! Looks like two peices of sand gettin their groove on, lol