I just got a set of Amber LED bulbs for my clear bumper lenses (yellow is required in Massachusetts). When I use the turn signal, they blink very rapidly...any way to fix this? Anyone have the same issue?

 

I have not had that problem. Are you sure all your blinkers are working (blinking)?

 

Yes...they are all working...these are LED bulbs, not regular ones. Does that make a difference?

 

Usually if one of your bulbs is gone, this causes them to blink rapidly, so maybe one isnt working or the bulb is incompatible and the wiring need to be modified! Hope that helped a bit!

 

I think Pfdaxe has them. You may want to drop him a PM.

 

i thing you will find that is somthing to do wit the difference in the resistance of the bulbs to the leds what you might need to do is put a resistor inline to bring it back to normal . i think it is because the flashing circuit uses the resistance of the bulbs to regulate the speed of the flashing , which is why when one goes out they speed up.
i gnow that this might not be much help but at least it should give you a direction.

 

Take a look at the very bottom of this link if figuring out what value of resistor you need isn't something you want to deal with.:pat:

http://autolumination.com/leds.html

This might fix the problem

 

Yeup...

The flasher is a mechanical device whose speed is regulated by how fast a circuit is open and closed, the circuit closes when power is applied (the turn signal switch going on). A bi-metallic switch is in the circuit which will react to the current coming through it by generating heat. When the switch gets to a given tempurature, it will open. Since there's no current now flowing through it, it will cool down and close. Once it closes, the process will start over again.


The LED lamps can affect this current flow, higher current flow will result in the switch heating faster which means that the blink rate will increase.

The resistor packs that Erich_870 pointed to should help you out.


Mark

 

I've changed to amber LED's at one time and my blinkers were very fast. I thought they were cool. But I really didn't like the LED's since they were not bright during day driving. They seem to be bright only directly in front of them but yet still not bright enough for daytime driving.So I changed them to silver coated amber bulbs and they work GREAT!!!! Blinkers blink normal again.

 

Yeah, that's a general quality of an LED - the dispersion is very tight when compared to normal filament bulbs. I'd think that makers would be using diffusers of some sort with them.

Mark

 

I know when you change to LED lamps on big rigs, you need to install a different flasher because of the change in resistance. On american rigs, reducing the "load" on the flashers will slow the flash rate. On Toys, reducing the load (LEDs or 1 bulb out) will speed up the flasher. There are flashers availible that are constant rate flash, no matter what the load is.

 

How turn signals work

 

it would be possible to degsin a flasher that was electronic it would be quite simple to do, it would need a 555 chip a handful of components and a relay , if your up to it , not sure if they would be avaliby comercialy so the best bet would be to go with an additional resistor but it would need to be quite a high wattage rating and best mounted to metal.