Half of my cluster lights work ?

[Forrest 35]

So took my cluster out to paint my gauge needles, after putting it back in with all three rear plugs connected the left hand side gauges don't work???

Fuses are fine, everything is plugged in, bulbs are fine.

Help is appreciated.

E30 cluster...

Cheers, Nathan

[greenday-rulz21 6]

Nathan, Try reseating the plugs. One time I put a cluster back in the petrol gauge wasn't working so I just took the plugs out and put them back in and it worked perfectly.

[Forrest 35]

Fixed, one of the bulbs was blown, but didn't look like it, swapped it and it works fine. Thanks Nick

[louis297 0]

Sorry to hijack but is it hard to paint them ? like get the cluster off and everything

[Forrest 35]

^ Paint what?

The bulbs project onto moulded orange plastic so no you can't paint them. I have seen people do it before on US forums but it is a lot of fiddling and customisation. BMW made their lights orange for a reason, it was because orange was found to be the most easy on the eyes during night time driving.

[louis297 0]

The nedles sorry

[DRTDVL 0]

^ Paint what?

The bulbs project onto moulded orange plastic so no you can't paint them. I have seen people do it before on US forums but it is a lot of fiddling and customisation. BMW made their lights orange for a reason, it was because orange was found to be the most easy on the eyes during night time driving.

It's because orange is the color that is a recognised warning color... Red is used for stop / damage of parts as it's the color most recognized but the human race as bad/Stop... red is also the easiest color for t he human i.e. to pick up if i remember correctly

[e30plz 1]

The nedles sorry

It's very easy to remove & paint them.

[OLLIE 26]

Nathan is right, bmw uses orange for it's interior lighting because it is the easiest on the eyes for night time driving, less glare etc.

Stolen from bimmerfest ...

We have rods and cones in our eyes. Cones are used at normal light levels and give us our visual acuity and color discrimination also called photopic vision. Rods are used in low light levels and give us night vision capability also called scotopic vision. At night or low light levels our eyes are dark adapted and the cones in our eyes are essentially "switched off". We are just using the rods in our eyes. Rods do not distinguish color only brightness. At a certain brightness level (~>0.3 cd/m^2) the rods get saturated with light and the cones take over. The rods are insensitive to longer wavelength lights (red region) so it is possible to increase illumination levels to provide high acuity vision needed to read gauges and displays and still remain dark adapted as you look out into the dark road in front of you. You're basically tricking the eye to activate both photopic and scotopic systems at the same time

[bravo 35]

Which is why alot the lights and gauges on boats have a switch that can make them red or white. White for sitting in a bay drinking rum, red for travelling at night or pimping 'ho's.

[DRTDVL 0]

Nathan is right, bmw uses orange for it's interior lighting because it is the easiest on the eyes for night time driving, less glare etc.

Stolen from bimmerfest ...

Sorry i was refering to the warning light colors not so much the interior lighting colors...

I read the bit about : "The bulbs project onto moulded orange plastic so no you can't paint them."

And was thinking about the warning lights in the dash (low fuel, engine stop light, water temp, etc...)