Am wondering if you can put brighter bulbs in the dash gauges. Mine are quite dim and was hoping I may be able to put in brighter ones.

Anyone done this?

Never done it, but a lot of lights have colored shields, mine are red, that cna be removed with some persuasion. Not sure how bright you want your gauges though, it will mess with you night vision.

Thanks WaterMutt,

I agree that I don't want them too bright, but mine are so dark you can hardly make them out.

Another thing to be careful about is the extra heat from brighter bulbs ( a friend with a modern Triumph Bonneville motorbike knows that from bitter experience; he thought all bulbs with the same fitting were the same wattage; Wrong! The higher wattage bulb melted the plastic gears of his speedometer mileage recorder! It was spometing like 2 or 3 W bulb replaced by a 6W one. I kid you not!

Regards,

Graham

Justified, I would not think this would be a problem with a late model boat such as yours, but check the voltage on the lights - it might be as simple as not enough voltage is getting to them (bad connector, etc).

Gauge lights are sometimes wired independantly from the gauge power, so that they come on and off with the nav-light switch, rather than stay on all the time.

I agree with Al. Check the connections and replace plugs or wires as needed.

I changed mine from bright white to red last year. The other ones were too bright for night cruising.

Is there a dimmer?

Not that I could find anywhere, I think it is just the Faria Gauges and the way they come.

Spun Silver faces, nice looking, but at night, you can see them, but not well.

Several new Four Winns buyers in the last year or two have complained about this. The boats in question have all had Fariah gauges. I've found myself wishing I could turn them up "half a click" but they haven't bothered me the way they have some others.

What color is the lighting in your Faria gauges?

If it's white light, I'd check the voltage for the light bulbs as Al suggested. If the lights are green, red or blue, remove the colored boots that are over the bulbs.

Faria uses different bulbs in different style instruments. The bulb numbers that they use are 124, 161, 168, 194, & 658.

The thing is, once it gets *really* dark out, I like mine just the way they are. It doesn't make sense to me that most newer runabouts don't have dimmers.

Sounds like an idea for a project.

It would be relatively simple to add a dimmer to reduce brightness, but how would I increase the maximum brightness without removing the blue covers?

You could replace the bulbs with ones that provide more light. But you would have to chose the right one. Too much heat and it might melt something.

For instance, according to burp's post above, three permissible lights for the Faria gauge are 161, 168, and 194 (I could not find the others).

Here are the characteristics of those bulbs:

#161 14V 0.19A 1MSCP
#168 14V 0.35A 3MSCP
#194 14V 0.270A 2MSCP

By the way, MSCP = Mean Spherical Candle Power, which is basically how intense the light is. So you can see, by changing bulbs, you can get a different intensity (with a different current draw).

You can also get LED replacements that fit into the same socket. Chicago Miniature Lamp Co makes such a thing.

For instance, their 1511B25W3 outputs 700 MCD and takes 0.014A, which is a lot less current.

Their 1511B25W3D is a diffused version, and has an output of 350 MCD, at the same current.

By the way, these are for white LEDs, but you can get Red, Blue, and Green LEDs as well.

Unfortunately LEDs are rated in MCD (milliCandellas) and there is no direct conversion from MSCD to MCD. So you would have to experiment and see if the light from the LEDs are as bright or brighter.

MSCD is light output of a bulb measured in all directions, while MCD is light output measured in one direction, so there is no direct coorelation between the two.

I found a source for both the incadescant and LED lights from my favorite electronics supplier - http://www.mouser.com

One caveat though. LEDs typically have a narrow directional 'cone of light'; sorta think of it as line of sight. This may not work very well in a dash gauge where you may be depending on light coming from an indirect source.

This is got me thinking, there is a lightbulb replacement article here.