Instument Cluster LCD's - can I make them brighter?

Just bought a '99 996 and love it! It seems the instrument cluster LCD screens are not very bright, you can still see them in daytime, but it's not great. Is there a way to fix that or is this just the way they are? Seems the entire instrument cluster lights could stand to be a bit brighter. I have the little "bulb" adjustment **** all the way up. Any help would be appreciated.

Older style gauge clusters have bulbs that you can change out to maybe a bit whiter. Newer style gauge clusters have LED's and are very difficult to change. That being said, depending on the sunlight hitting the cluster, I find my cluster screens quite acceptable and easy to read. I would not go through the trouble of pulling the instrument cluster unless one of them was burned out. Some helpful instructions and hints https://www.renntech.org/forums/topic/1827-dash-bulbs/

Ok, I'll leave the bulbs alone for now but what about the orange colored LCD's? Do they have their own illumination or is it from the same bulbs (backlit)?

See link above

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Cool, thanks! Looks like you can pull them out from the back and replace (the 3 LCD backlight bulbs) maybe with brighter, higher watt bulbs or just white bulbs.

Careful with higher wattage...that means more heat and the LCD screens may not like that. Seems like a whiter bulb might be the ticket. Personally I like the orange. Also think about the age of your car. You might have 18 year old bulbs in the cluster, and just replacing what is there might help.

I changed out all the lights in my 996 to blue for the buttons and screens and white to the cluster. MUCH better! I used these guys: http://sportscarleds.com/

Superbrightled's has replacements for all 996 lights. What is very cool is that, for many lights, you can select both color of the light and color temperature. Color temperature is very important, if you put "cool" 5000K or 6000k LED bulbs in a vintage car dome light, for example, it will look horribly out of place (don't ask me how I know). Regular incandescents are around 2700K, so selecting closest to 2700k is best if you just want brighter lights and lower power usage from LED's without changing the look of the lighting. The good thing about LED's when you want to go brighter is that, even though they are much brighter than the original incandescents, they run a lot cooler. If you run higher wattage incandescents, they will be brighter, but (as Joe already mentioned) they will run a lot hotter with could damage internal components. This page is pretty awesome (this is for MY2000) for 996 bulbs (if you drill down, you will see instrument lights in different colors and color temps) --> https://www.superbrightleds.com/vehi...=319&year=2000 I haven't put any LED's in the 996, but I've used superbrightleds for other cars and have been happy with their products.

I am quite happy with the results too! I'll post pictures for you too see later today.

Does it get dimmer when you turn on the headlights?

The lights on my cluster and all the switch gear do not turn on until the headlights/park lights are turned on.

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I'm under the impression he is referring to the screens like the speedometer, outside temp, and clock. They should be on regardless of headlights - but they should dim when the headlights are turned on. If they aren't dimming when the headlights are switched on, its possible that they're stuck in 'night mode' for some reason - which would explain why they are so hard to read during the day.