My LED's keep burning out., Why? Options

[richee3]

I have been using LED's in my gauge cluster for a little over 2 years now. The first set of LED's I had were cheap-o blue LED's from Ebay. After a while, the LED behind my fuel and engine temp gauge went out. But it didn't go all the way out. It started flashing on and off, between all the way off, all the way on, and about halfway in between. After a while, it settled down to being about halfway on, but it would still flash. I chalked that up to cheap LED's, and moved on to white LED's from v-leds.com. I got them put in last Christmas. Last Spring, same thing happens, in the same spot. The bulb behind the fuel/temp gauge starts flashing like it's burning out, but never goes all the way out. I moved it around, and no matter where I put it, it still flashed. So I replaced the bulb with a spare that I had, and a few weeks ago, it started doing the same thing. Now, the other LED's behind my speedo and tach, in my turn signal indicators, and in my key ring are all fine. Nothing ever happens to them. It's always the one behind the fuel/temp gauge, and it's always the bulb going out. I can move it anywhere and it still flashes. I find it hard to believe that it's just coincidence that 3 different LED's have gone bad, when they were all in the same spot. So... What's up with my LED's? Or, I guess, what's up with my gauge cluster that is making them burn out like that? I have a video of what they are doing, if anybody needs to see it.

Thanks in advance for any insight you guys have.

[solidxsnake]

Pics of my dash and CC unit, as well as head unit. It's a bit brighter in person, everything is clearly visible. It looks as if an LED isn't lighting up in my dash, I'll look at it at some point. However everything is brighter than before, and looks much better IMO. Some of the colors may be slightly skewed, but all of the lights are white, needles are red, and select lights on the CC unit/head unit are red (obvious).










Rear Defroster button:



Don't mind the ridiculous resistor cluster. It's a set of several resistors in parallel to give me 480ohms to lower the 12v source to light the single LED. I didn't have anything near 480ohms for resistors, so I just went with what I had

CC Unit:






While I'm at it... poor-man's AUX-In port!



The connecting wire from the CD Deck to the center-console trim: