• Welcome to the Contour Enthusiasts Group, the best resource for the Ford Contour and Mercury Mystique.

    You can register to join the community.

Tail light LED problems? Those who are good with electrical

R

rexxdoggy

Hard-core CEG'er
Joined
Jul 14, 2007
Messages
3,239
Location
Crestview, Florida
So I ordered a pair of 3157 LEDs for the tail lights to plug in the back. Here's the dilemma. They turn on when I put the lights on, they light up when I apply the brakes, BUT, when the parking signals are turned on (left and right), they blink faster as if one of the "bulbs was out" (Blinks faster to let you know there is a bad bulb and it's not signaling correctly). Now, this has to do with resistors and ohms or something like that, right? And it's not getting the correct reading? But anyways, would a switchback style LED correct that? Or would I need to fit a resistor of some sort in there to solve the problem?
 
The lights blink fast from the flasher not seeing the same load or amps. LED light draw less power or amps per bulb. The flasher then blinks fast as designed to let you know a regular bulb burned out. I always wanted to see if a heavy duty electronic flasher would blink the same speed regardless of load. These are found in the parts department for towing. The adding of trailer lights changes the load also and some reg. flashers start blinking fast then also. If that doesn't work then you need to add the resistors at each light to simulate the load of the blinker bulb filament.
 
I somehow forgot thelink to my edit in my previous post. Check that out. Is that the resistor I'm looking to add to help produce the load to make it work correctly?
 
That looks like the same load resistor v-leds sells and should fix your problem. V-leds sells two different types of load resistors depending if you want use leds on both the front and rear or just one or the other.
 
Well, I bought fronts as well. So I need to order another pair. I read around that they say I need one for each LED. And I hear they get HOT HOT HOT lol
 
If you take the plastic trim off of the steering column, there is a relay that is attached to the turn signal stalk. Just replace that relay with the LED one and you are good to go. Plug and play.
 
Ahh yeeahhh. Someone actually told me that last night. Pretty much elimantes all the resistors with just one equalizer relay. I'm probably going to look into that.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top