flashkl

My buddy was driving behind me the other day and noticed that when I turn a directional on both my blinkers flash as if I have hazards on...except the correct one is normal brightness and the one that shouldnt be flashing is really dim. These are aftermarket LED lamps that have combined brake lights/turn signals. The front blinkers are completely fine. Anybody have any ideas or should I go get my truck exorcised?

swampfox

i have read that leds take a differant type of flasher.you might also check the grounds.

angrydogtattoo

x1 on checking the grounds

toyminator2000

Grounds

flashkl

there's one ground for each tail lamp assembly, correct?

iamsuperbleeder

do you have a trailer wire harness installed?

could be faulty; might want to try removing it and seeing what happens



when I installed the LEDs in my tails with my trailer harness, there was feedback through the system and the blinkers caused the brake lights on both sides to faintly flash as well. I just dealt with it because it wasn't all too noticeable in my case

flashkl

^^that sounds spot on. I prolly just didn't notice it til now cause it was so faint

iamsuperbleeder

Yeah with normal filament style bulbs, you'll never notice it, because the filament takes so many watts to burn and be visible. But since the LED's take practically no wattage at all to light up, the light bit of feedback that seeps through the trailer light control box becomes apparent, and they'll light up faintly. The reason for the feed back is because the way the 4-wire trailer harness lights the brake lights, it simply signals to light both turn signals at the same time. So in the control box, the left and right turn signals are tied together in the circuitry somewhere, and it's because they're tied together that you'll see the feedback of both left and right to light faintly.

IF you want to get in depth with it, you can try to break it down into what the basic coding for a trailer brake controller might look like


:Inputs - GROUND, TAIL-IN, BREAK-IN, LTURN-IN, RTURN-IN (5 wires leading into the control box)
:Outputs - GROUND, TAIL-OUT, LTURN-OUT, RTURN-OUT (4 wires leading out of the control box and to the trailer; notice the loss of the BREAK signal)
:
:GROUND carries through; same on both ends
:if (TAIL-IN = on) then (TAIL-OUT = on) (when you turn the lights on in the truck, the trailer lights light dimly, as the tail lights on the truck do)
:if (LTURN-IN = on) then (LTURN-OUT = on) (when the left turn signal on the truck flashes, the left turn signal on the trailer flashes)
:if (RTURN-IN = on) then (RTURN-OUT = on) (when the right turn signal on the truck flashes, the right turn signal on the trailer flashes)
:if (BREAK-IN = on) then (LTURN-OUT = on & RTURN-OUT = on) THIS is the key point where both left and right sides are tied together and causes both sides to light)


Sorry to get geeky on you there

But in an ideal world, there would be NO feedback through the trailer harness, and I'm sure there's plenty of them out there that do in fact have zero feedback (it's quite easy to solve with a simple set of diodes ), but some of the less expensive converter boxes will have the feedback, and the LED bulbs in the truck simply show the feedback

B4Runner

Where the hell did this kid come from?!?!

iamsuperbleeder

hehehe

flashkl

that makes so much sense... it's not like I ever tow anything anyways, I'll jut pull the harness out