# D.I.Y. - SONY DSX-S300BTX h.u. green color change mod, check it out...



## 'dubber (Jun 15, 2004)

What's up people, I recently installed the Sony DSX-S300BTX headunit into my Mk3 VW. It's a great headunit except for a couple of things, one of them being a limited color selection for the LED backlit controls. 

This is what Sony gives you:











This is no good because the rest of my dash and switches are GREEN! The blue in particular is really bright and kills night vision. I did some research before buying to see if green was available from Sony and stumbled across a video where the guy tries to address the brightness issue. He didn't really fully succeed in even dimming it but it looked easy enough to get in there.

(Sorry, not sure how to make the video pop up in the thread, here's a link though.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUIapjETy2w 

Then I had a brainfart!










I might be able use glow-in-the-dark paint and make it opaque over the blue LEDs (which happen to excite glow paint really well), and it would glow whatever color the paint would be without allowing any blue to be seen! I got some paint and some blue LEDs and resistors to play with and found that my idea worked great. A few coatings of yellow followed by a few coatings of green gave me the closest match to my dash. I tested to make sure that the paint wasn't electrically conducive when dry, which it wasn't. So I took the detachable face apart and got out a really small paint brush and went to work. 

Here is is all apart:










Here's a closer look at where I added the paint...a number of thin coats of yellow built up, then a number of thicker coats of green. I eventually ended up with a dome of glow paint, sealing out any blue LED light. Some of the LEDs were surface-mount, and some were mounted in press-button switches. 










I wasn't sure how it would look, but I'm quite happy with the result.










It's still fairly bright around the search button and the ring, so maybe a couple more coats will be in order on those particular LEDs. The other buttons may look too dark in the picture, but they are actually good, and as you can see all of the backlighting is now green! It looks much greener in person.

(The display is still monochromatic and that is your only option from Sony. It is set to "dim" in my pic. I tested a piece of green tint by holding it up to the display and it looked weird so I did not apply it.)

:beer:


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## Non_Affiliated (Feb 12, 2002)

I did this with a (IIRC) MFD2 for a guy, oh wait no I didn't I just change out 31 Green LED's to red ones. :laugh:

Let me tell ya, that was a PITA. I too will be looing for a Donor Alpine 9856 faceplate and doing a swap from the Blue buttons to Green LED's. Whcih will most likely require a resistor swap as Blue LED's have a higher forward bias voltage. SO I will work for a all green 9856 to mach my COrrado Dash.


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## 'dubber (Jun 15, 2004)

Yeah I wasn't about to go near those leds with my basic soldering tools. What tools/methods did you use? You can do what I did if you're starting with blue led since it triggers the paint really well. :beer:


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## Non_Affiliated (Feb 12, 2002)

I have a Hakko ESD soldering station, not nessessarily desogned for SMD soldering. It's a $200 soldering station, by no means is it the the best, but it definitly beats the Radio Shack board burners. I have learned to do SMD soldering work, on less than idea soldering stations.
All that practice happened when I worked at Fluke Electronics Corp., Yes as in Fluke Multimeters. I did hundereds of firmare upgrades which reqired Hardware board modifications to load new firmware for Fluke 19X and 123 scopementer families.


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## Syndil (Dec 7, 2005)

Found this thread via Google, searching for "Sony DSX Green." I'm looking to finally replace my 12-year-old Mobile ES MDX-C8970, and I really like the specs of the DSX-310BT, but holy hell that blue/red is bright and ugly. Whatever happened to classy amber/green, and making a HU look like it actually belonged in the car??

Anyway, brilliant idea with the glow-in-the-dark paint. I was thinking I'd have to swap LEDs, which at that point I would just say screw it and not even attempt it. But paint? Yeah, I can paint.

So thanks for the idea. I mean really, way to think outside the box. Are you left-handed?


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## AnthonyLawson (Sep 9, 2011)

:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:


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