Electro-Luminescent Dials

This is a project Matthew Kimmins has been working on for some time.  Those of you using your cars at night will no doubt agree that the instrument lighting leaves much to be desired.  One option is to by-pass the rheostat, and another is to put the headlights onto a relay.  However, in fairness, the later r/b cars from 76 onwards do have reasonable lighting, but, the idea of improving the visibility at night is always a good safety point.

Matthew first started by trying LED lighting in his instruments, but then about 2 years ago, he chanced upon electro-luminescent wire.

"The definition of the characters has to be seen to be believed but I would guess there is a certain amount of ultra-violet in the spectral output and the paint used on the dials is excited by this. The central numbers could easily be side lit with a couple of LED's. The photos below just show the two large gauges."

No doubt Matthew will shortly be offering these as a kit for you to add to your "Upgrade" wish list!