madcratebuilder
Rank V
Pathfinder I
Mid price Amazon LEDs in every socket of my 17 Colorado, 2.6 years and all is fine. Yet some owners have problems with the Colorado, BCM, ground???
Led lights suck
- Thread starter Boostpowered
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Member III
I think its the lights like any other cheap electronic its a gamble sometimes you get something really awesome, sometimes its just straight up crap. Then there are things like water and heat that will break em quicker. I assure you its not our trucks. With so many components packed into the lights any number of thing can go bad fom the wires like mine to pc board and drivers, casing seals, fans to the leds themselves.
Ive had greenhouse leds do the same thing especially the cob type like to melt wires.
Member III
Ive converted all of my lights to LED. Its a combination of LED bulbs in existing lights and replacement LED lights. Theyve all been in situ for 6 - 7 years (maybe more) and ive not had ANY issues. I will admit that buying cheap Chinese impots from Ebay or other similar methods is not sonething ive even conaidered.
Member III
I personally don't like the light output on the LED's. I'm talking factory here. Converting to LED is a crap shoot. "IF" your LED bulb doesn't screw up your light cutoff consider your self lucky. The next is cooling. The basic math is this, output in lumen converts to power (wattage) input which converts to heat (BTU). If the manufacture didn't build the bulb to properly dissipate the heat, you burn up bulbs or circuitry. That's assuming the circuitry is built properly.
As the people who live in cold/snow weather commented, not enough heat from the front to keep the lens clear.
Personally, I run HID. I don't add in HID bulbs but, mod in the proper projector housings, ballasts and wire size. If not done properly you have the same issue with LED. Poor cutoff's (light pattern), wrong color and unreliable system.
Without actually seeing the OP's system, based on what has been done, I would be hesitant to blame the wiring for him eating bulbs. LED's have a wide voltage range they can run in without issue. Wiring problem normally means wont work. The fact that just replacing the bulb fix's it for a time points to crap bulb's or a carbon buildup on the terminals. Voltage spikes and EMI/RFI have very little effect on LED unless the circuit board was cheap and unprotected. There would probably be more symptoms also, flicker, dimming....
In halogen, if you can get them for your bulb design, I prefer HIR. Halogen Infrared. Large tungsten filament, great color and holds up to vibration.
As the people who live in cold/snow weather commented, not enough heat from the front to keep the lens clear.
Personally, I run HID. I don't add in HID bulbs but, mod in the proper projector housings, ballasts and wire size. If not done properly you have the same issue with LED. Poor cutoff's (light pattern), wrong color and unreliable system.
Without actually seeing the OP's system, based on what has been done, I would be hesitant to blame the wiring for him eating bulbs. LED's have a wide voltage range they can run in without issue. Wiring problem normally means wont work. The fact that just replacing the bulb fix's it for a time points to crap bulb's or a carbon buildup on the terminals. Voltage spikes and EMI/RFI have very little effect on LED unless the circuit board was cheap and unprotected. There would probably be more symptoms also, flicker, dimming....
In halogen, if you can get them for your bulb design, I prefer HIR. Halogen Infrared. Large tungsten filament, great color and holds up to vibration.
Member III
Some of your newer vehicles sense power draw for a variety of reasons. The BCM or light control module wasn't programmed for the LED. Now its confused. Those vehicles require an interface module to work properly. You can also have the bulb assemblies causing a "back feed". A small amount of power feeding back down a wire that shouldn't be there. In my 1996 Cruiser (think, no body computer) I get a backfeed from my rear LED turn signal, into my stop light wire. If i'm running cruise control, my turn signal shuts off cruise. Imagine how confusing just that can be to a modern computerized system.
For those reasons you read where this person never has an issue and those people do. Same vehicles, different accessories and or different bulb manufactures.
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Gee whiz, you gotta be a rocket scientist today to just change a light bulb ??? Now I have to worry about computer crap to turn my lights on ? Someone tell me it isn't true. :-(
Your olde truck has them everywhere. S terminal on the starter, and on the relay.
It's the wire coming off your starter going to ground, with the little square thing. When the coils magnetic field collapses when you turn the starter off, it induces a voltage into the wire. That square diode allows power from the starter to go to ground but blocks power from the ignition from shorting to ground.
It's the wire coming off your starter going to ground, with the little square thing. When the coils magnetic field collapses when you turn the starter off, it induces a voltage into the wire. That square diode allows power from the starter to go to ground but blocks power from the ignition from shorting to ground.
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The real culpurit revealed itself tonight, the new sylvania led started hyperflashing on the passenger side(same led that went bad) those cheap clamp connectors weren't making a connection. I cut and stripped the wires and rewired everything my way now it works as it should with no chance of coming loose again. Now i just need to remember to do the drivers side so that dont happen again on that side.
Member III
I think you should probably differentiate between OEM lights designed around LED emitters, and bargain drop in hokum because they are not the same.
ETA: I see that you have indirectly done exactly that. "LED" isn't a measure of quality, poor quality and bogus wiring will almost always yield unsatisfactory results.
ETA: I see that you have indirectly done exactly that. "LED" isn't a measure of quality, poor quality and bogus wiring will almost always yield unsatisfactory results.
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Glad you found it. It does look like a piece of worthless crap. I'm also glad it was bad wiring and not the led lights. I think I would cover that connection with silicone too. It looks like a lot of water and mud was in the connector at some point.
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No the led was crap too see the photo above in the post. It had bare wire rubbing inside and came apart way too easy. Ive switched from the junk leds over to sylvania leds that have an aluminum housing instead of plastic.
There is always water n mud on my truck everywhere, probably 40lbs of it right now in various nooks and crannies .
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I did a full exterior LED swap on my XJ right after I bought it. The LED taillight/brakelight when the parking lights were on would flash the brake lights when one of the blinkers were on. Weird. with some trouble shooting I found the brake light/taillight LEDs were the issue so kept the LED turn signals and went back to standard brake lights for now. Those were cheap LEDs in the brake lights I kind of want to try the Sylvania LEDs but I can buy a lot of standard bulbs for that money.
I went with some Trucklight knock offs for the headlights. They ran about 90 dollars but have been in there for over a year and a half now. I don't get flashed by other cars for bright lights, they have good cut off and good output and cut power consumption in half. I'm happy with them.
Most of my interior has been replaced with LED lighting as well with exception of my dash lighting. Been pretty happy with that. Running interior lights all night is not an issue they draw almost no power.
I went with some Trucklight knock offs for the headlights. They ran about 90 dollars but have been in there for over a year and a half now. I don't get flashed by other cars for bright lights, they have good cut off and good output and cut power consumption in half. I'm happy with them.
Most of my interior has been replaced with LED lighting as well with exception of my dash lighting. Been pretty happy with that. Running interior lights all night is not an issue they draw almost no power.
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The sylvanias were only like $15 @ autozone . On the rear tail/brake lights did you install a 50 watt 6ohm load resistor on each led? Since your rigs a little older the led specific blinker relay may be the ticket for you.
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On the older vehicles, I use an electronic flasher. I refuse to use the ballast resistors. Not only do they defeat the reason for the LED but, they give the conversion more areas to fail. A common misconception on the resistors is you need them to drop the voltage for the LED. Their purpose is to keep the power draw the same as a regular bulb so the flasher is the correct speed. The down side of the electronic flashers is, if you burn out a bulb, you most likely wont see a change in flashing speed.
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Well on the computer controlled stuff there is no flasher relay so if you go to led you have to use a load resistor otherwise there is hyperflash and an annoying message on the dash everytime the turn signal is on. The computer sees the led as a blown bulb since there is so little voltage being drawn and that triggers hyperflashing the only ways to defeat it is dont use leds or install a load resistor in parallel.
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Sadly, you are correct. I hate having to diagnose these. You ask the person (customer) if they have done anything (modified). The response is almost always no. Once you figure out they replaced the bulbs, they argue that their friend doesn't have that issue with his vehicle and that you obviously are wrong. Your choices at this time are, install the correct bulbs and show them or let them leave mad. Either way, your not getting paid. I not only see this with tail/running lights but with dome lights also.
You use LED because their more efficient. Then you lose your gain by being forced to use a ballast resistor. I'm glad the vehicles I own, I can change to a different flasher.
Yep...welcome to the world of aftermarket.
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Well i didnt start switching to led for any efficiency im not worried about power draw . At first i did it because i figured like house led they would last a little longer than incadecent lights the second reason is they are alot brighter and i wanted to get rid of all the led light pods like my ditch lights and front pods. I learned my lesson on cheap leds and connectors. All my license plate lights and interior are smg led and ive had no problem whatsoever with them. Its not a big deal just gets annoying having to pull the tailight or headlight housing multiple times. I find it really annoying that i have el cheapo light pods made in china older than my truck that still work just fine.
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You guys convinced me that my OEM lights are just fine. I'b be in trouble fast if any of the problems you guys are talking about were mine.
