Because the factory lighting for the 2-B's dial leaves a bit to be desired - particularly in the center portions of the dial, I tried something a little different and mounted a few SMD LEDs and dropping resistors on a small piece of prototyping circuit board. The LEDs point straight up from underneath the dial window.
The 2-B-1 picture shows them illuminated (without the rig powered off so as not to include the side lighting). The 2-B-2 picture shows the crude board (with masking tape to hold it to ad small piece of wood that elevates the board just above the top of the slide switch bodies). If you zoom in on the board, please excuse the very sloppy soldering work. Those 0805 chips are pretty small...
As you can see, this creates just a bit of a shadow of the needle against the white backing plate so I'm not sure how much I like this but at least it is more uniformly lighted across the dial. I may pursue a formal PCB with several more LEDs that might help eliminate some of that shadowing.
Anyway, just thought I'd share.
Thanks,
Barry - N4BUQ
