| Author |
Message |
R.J.(Bob) Evans (Bobofthenorth)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - 11:16 pm: | |
So the bus is up at the lake and my new LED lights come in. I put them in - about 2 weeks ago. This morning I get up early, hook up the boat and head home. Out on the highway, flip on the cruise - no cruise.
WTH? I had some difficulty last year when I installed the King Cruise but it has worked just fine ever since. Nothing else to do on the trip home - I eventually stumbled onto the fact that shutting the clips off would allow me to use the cruise. I blamed it on the boat trailer - must be a short in the wiring somewhere although that didn't really make a lot of sense.
Tonight I get home from work and immediately unplug the boat trailer and try the cruise. Still no go so its in the bus somewhere. Long story short - after I changed the LEDs back to the original incandescents everything works fine.
Why?
I am completely baffled - any suggestions, trouble shooting tips or just plain WAGs would be more than welcome. |
John that newguy
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, June 23, 2005 - 12:16 am: | |
There's a lot of info on the web that deals with inoperable
cruise control with LED lighting! This site mentions lower resistance
of the LED stoplights causing insufficient signal to the computer
that controls the cruise control.
Try using incandecents in the stoplights and see if it cures the ill.
Howz dat? |
Jim Bob
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, June 23, 2005 - 8:42 am: | |
The cruise I have gets its ground THROUGH the filaments of the stop lights. So I'm sure mine would have the same problem.
Different vehicle: We bought off the shelf multi LED tail light bulbs & put them in our Explorer. Now the signal flasher blinks very fast, like when you have a failed bulb. Not enough resistance. You'd think the LED bulb guys would have thought of that before selling their product since car makers specifically engineer that function to tell you you have a bulb out.
Has anybody figured out what kind of resistor you'd need to add to the turn signal circuits to get the proper function back? |
R.J.(Bob) Evans (Bobofthenorth)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, June 23, 2005 - 9:16 am: | |
These are good theories but what's the tie-in to my clearance lamps? If I leave the clips off I can use the cruise. That would seem to rule out the ground through the brake circuit as the culprit. |
Jtng
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, June 23, 2005 - 9:54 am: | |
All the incandescent bulbs offer a degree (cumulative) of resistance
in the DC circuit. The computer detects the resistance in the light
circuit in it's process of setting the cruise control. Seeing a differential
that's not to it's liking, refuses to allow the cruise to work.
Theory? Sure. But you're suffering the symptoms that the "theory"
describes.
You might want to insure that the brake circuit isn't getting it's
voltage from the same circuit the lights are on. If so, try moving
the brake light feed to another fuse.... or move the marker light
feed to a different fuse. |
Gary Stadler (Boogiethecat)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, June 23, 2005 - 11:05 am: | |
TRY getting a 24 ohm, 10 watt resistor and stick it across your LEDs. It will provide the needed resistance to your cruze control. If it works as I suspect it will, all the guys above are correct.
The resistor can be had here:
http://www.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail?Ref=73764&Row=47175&Site=US
Whopping 60 cents...
Good luck! |
gusc
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, June 23, 2005 - 5:21 pm: | |
Jim Bob,
Seems to me that a series resistor will destroy the LED advantage of low power consumption. The other benefits may outweigh this one though, cost not being one of them! |
Jon W.
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, June 23, 2005 - 8:04 pm: | |
While low power consumption of LEDs is a big plus, their extreme life and rapid "on" are the primary reason most OEMs are using them. |
David Hartley (Drdave)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, June 23, 2005 - 9:23 pm: | |
You also have a bad ground or feed-thru voltage in the LED module that allows the parking light voltage to backfeed into the brake light circuit.
Most of the dual use LEDs have a resistor internally that allows a reduced current to flow from the parking circuit to the brake circuit so that all leds are lit when the parking circuit is powered and more current applied when the brake circuit is engergized.
A load resistor on the brake circuit to ground should solve the problem. I would try a 240 ohm 5 watt resistor. It should pull the voltage down and not overload the circuit. |
Jim Bob
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, June 24, 2005 - 10:22 am: | |
Gus,
First, I didn't buy the LED tail light bulbs. The previous owner installed them. Personally, I do not like them at all. The ONLY advantage I see is long life. On a vehicle with a 140 amp alternator, who cares how much wattage the brake lights draw? Furthermore, I don't like the "many points of light" appearance of these things. I like the look of an incandescant lit tail light.
The problem is, that with their low current draw the flasher does not work properly, flashing so fast it's almost a flicker. My thouht is, that the maker of the lamp should have included the resistor so that they functioned properly.
But since it's my wife's car and she likes them, I'm stuck with them. So it's off to Radio Shack. |
Gary Stadler (Boogiethecat)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, June 24, 2005 - 11:24 am: | |
When you get that resistor, just remember that the 24 ohms I suggested will draw about 1/2 amp, which is a lot closer to what an incandescent would draw, than David's suggestion of 240 ohms, which will only draw 50 milliamps, which is a lot more like what LED's will draw. If you want to mimic lightbulbs, you have to eat some current!
Also, if you want to get inside the led housing, it is possible to put a big (electrically speaking) electrolytic capacitor directly across the LED's, downstream (on the LED side) of their internal resistor, to make the "snap-on/off" effect a lot softer; they'll fade up and down more like a lightbulb would instead of being so frikking annoying to people following you.
Something like 1000mfd at 15 volts would be a good starting value, adjust capacitance up or down to your tastes... |
Richard Bowyer (Drivingmisslazy)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, June 24, 2005 - 1:07 pm: | |
Just go and buy a flasher that will flash a certain number of times per minute regardless of load. I had one in my bus. Think it is called heavy duty or something like that.
Richard |
Tom Caffrey (Pvcces)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, June 25, 2005 - 12:44 am: | |
Also, there's a motorized flasher, if that's not what Richard was talking about. They're intended to be used by trucks so that adding a trailer behind the tractor will have no effect on them.
I think that these might run into $20-25 range.
Tom Caffrey PD4106-2576
Suncatcher |
Brian (Bigbusguy)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, June 25, 2005 - 11:33 am: | |
Any hot rod ,classic car supply sells flashers for use with led lights.
Brian 4905 |
Lew Poppleton (Lewpopp)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, June 25, 2005 - 10:24 pm: | |
Jim Bob
I cannot imagine that I have a theory on why you have no cruise. I personally know nothing about electricity.
I had my cruise working about 10% of the time and made an appt with Detriot/AllIson to have the computer hook up. In driving to the appt the cruise worked about 15 times out of 15. Doesn't that usually happen?
Later I had an accident with my tow car and needed a new baseplate and I thought the garage hooked my wires up wrong.
After further inspection, I was only getting about 10% of the power at the outlet. Well, at that point in electrical work, I was stuck.
I asked an electrical engineering genius formerly employed by IBM and he traced it to the board that controls the power to the tow vehicle. After rebuilding my circuit board, 3 or 4 traces, he reinstalled it, wired up my car and guess what? THE CRUISE CONTROL HAS WORKED 100% EVER SINCE.
If I wasn't able to repair the circuit board, Marathon said they have an update for about 1000 bucks. Love it . |
Lew Poppleton (Lewpopp)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, June 25, 2005 - 10:27 pm: | |
Hey Jim Bob
I also installed LED tail lights and love them and that was prior to the circuit board repair by 6-8 weeks |
Jim Bob
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, June 26, 2005 - 8:21 am: | |
Lew, it's RJ(Bob) that has no cruise. On my bus, the cruise works fine sensing through the filaments of my INCANDESCENT bulbs which are not about to be replaced with LEDs. By the way, the 4104 (not sure about others) uses the resistance of the brake light bulbs to work a tell tale that will tell you if ONE of the filaments burns out. This is done with a specially wound relay coil that has worked fine now for almost 50 years without even a diode!
You have to give those old engineers credit!
Brian & Tom, thanks, I'm going to go the new flasher route. We will lose the built in dead bulb indicator though. |
Brian (Bigbusguy)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, June 26, 2005 - 1:11 pm: | |
I lost the dead bulb indicator when I went to 12 volt lights but with long lasting LED's and a pre trip walk around It should not be a problem.
I still dont see how light bulbs make the cruise work or dont work?
I have yet to buy or install my cruise control I guess I will have to look at how it wired so I pick one the will not have that problem.
Brian 4905 |
toddVP (Tvp)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, July 15, 2005 - 1:49 pm: | |
as others have stated ... when using LEDs ...
LED use less current .. but .. they are DIODES .. not resistors like the old edison bulbs .. so you'll need another diode to "separate" them from your "system" ... something most LED light people have missed .. since they don't actually USE THEM !!!
adding resistors across a DC line is VERY BAD idea ..you know .. your going to need ATLEAST a 40 watt resistor to do "that" ?? not to mention ..what are you going to do with the 20 watts of HEAT ???
use a "heavy duty" flasher as it's designed to flash ANY load .. reguardless of how many bulbs are on that circuit ...
needless to say ... I've been converting automotive lights to LED for quite some time now ...
TVP
geekofalltrades.com |
Jim Bob
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, July 16, 2005 - 11:29 am: | |
Well, I just converted my wife's car back to regular bulbs. Now folks (including myself) can SEE the tail lights in the daytime (rainy) & the flasher & dead bulb function work properly. I'm a happy guy.
I guess I can see why a fleet operator would consider changing running/tail lights, etc. due to reduced maintenance, but I see no advantage for the rest of us.
LED lighting for off grid or dry camping uses is something else though. That makes sense.
Jim Bob |