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Led Indicators


Paul Martin Forrest
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I bought myslef some rear Lexus style clear lights for the back of my MK1 Focus. Looking reakky nice now. I also got a full set of LED Bulbs to replace all back bulbs. They have all worked except for the rear indicators. They do not light up at all. I have the correct type - 382 21w type bulbs, they fit. I have tried turning them round. I read somewhere about resistors. Can anyone help? Do I have to replace ALL indicator buls around the car and then buy resistors? Which ones, where do i connect them ? Or can I get a special kind of LED bulb that works.

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If you replace them with an LED variety, the speed of the indicators will be very fast, so you would need resistors in order to slow them down.

Is it just one of the two light clusters the bulb doesnt work in or both?

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If you replace them with an LED variety, the speed of the indicators will be very fast, so you would need resistors in order to slow them down.

Is it just one of the two light clusters the bulb doesnt work in or both?

It was both sides, I swapped the bulbs round on each side and also turned them round the other way but it didn't help. I emailed the company and they are sending me out a new set. Is there a special kind of resistor i need ? Where does it go ? Will I need to replace front and side indicators with LED too ?

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if you do, you will need to cut the indicator wire, and solder in a resistor into each circuit, not a job for the faint of heart!

if you contact your seller, they should be able to recommend the best resistor for that bulb.

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if you do, you will need to cut the indicator wire, and solder in a resistor into each circuit, not a job for the faint of heart!

if you contact your seller, they should be able to recommend the best resistor for that bulb.

Do you mean one resistor for left and one for right ? Could I use a scotchlok type connector just into the wire before the bulb ?

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I did put some wee silvertec bulbs in my side repeaters when i put in clear covers. I just thought it would be nice to have some bright LEDs in the back seeing as i put in the clear lexus cluster

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Given the rear light screw holes leak water into the car you dont really want to keep taking them off leds will burn out oretty quickly and on the mk1 they never seem to last i fitted tge silvatec to my mk2 front and rear with just led side repeaters

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Just to clarify, the flasher relay is load-sensitive and the rate depends on the current being drawn so the resistors would be needed in parallel with the lamps, i.e. between the feed wires and ground. In principle you'd only need one per side. I haven't researched this but maybe some LEDs are available with resistors built in. Either way you would still be dissipating 21W or thereabouts per lamp so there would be no power saving and the resistors could get pretty hot so would either need to be metal-cased types bolted to the body or positioned with plenty of free-air space around them. You'd get the benefit of a longer bulb life but whether that outweighs the extra cost is a moot point.

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Starting to sound complicated. The company have send me out replacement LED repeaters but I may just put in some silvertec bulbs instead. It's a shame coz all the rest are LED :(

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Leds just cant take the heat hence why new ones are coming out with heat shields but the truth is they just dont last compared to standard bulbs rear brake tail lights burn out quickly so if they are led ide change them to be honest ive seen the chip boards on error free bulbs melt from the heat

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LED's can be fitted without any problems as long as the correct resistance is used.

The problem with most (light bulb replacing) LED lamps is that they are calculated for 12 Volts and the voltage of the focus MK1 and MK2/MK2.5 is much higher. Under normal conditions it will be 14 Volts. Because the higher Voltage the life of the LED lamps will be affected negatively.

I use LED lamps for many years now without any problems. I bought some standard (chinese) light bulb replacing LED lamps and changed the resistor for one which is calculated for 15 Volts. I Did a test with 2 standard light bulb replacing LED lamps and 2 modified ones. The standard LED lamps broke down after 6 weeks. The modified LED lamps are still burning after 2,5 Years now.

LED lamps can also be used for indicators without any problems. As said this can be done by using resistors which are connected parrallel to the LED lamp. Another simple solution is to connect a socket with standard light bulb parrallel to the LED lamp and mount it behind the bodywork (so it cannot be seen from outside or inside the car. The standard light bulb will also become a little warm but this is much less than a resistor which in some cases can reach temperatures of 150 degrees Celsius.

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  • 3 weeks later...

have a look at my mod list, almost all my bulbs (barr headlights, fogs and indicators) are LED... I wouldnt mind them but there is no way I am installing resistors on every damn indicator wire! lol

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Leds just cant take the heat hence why new ones are coming out with heat shields but the truth is they just dont last compared to standard bulbs rear brake tail lights burn out quickly so if they are led ide change them to be honest ive seen the chip boards on error free bulbs melt from the heat

This is a direct result of needing a high-power resistor across the LED. As with the indicator lamps in order to work error-free the LEDs have to draw a similar current to the equivalent filament bulb so by Ohms Law they must dissipate the same power. The filament lamp gets rid of the heat energy by conduction through the inert gas and envelope into the free air around it but the LED resistors operate in a confined space so it's much more difficult to get the heat away. I haven't see the ones with heat shields but I'd guess that they are just heatsinks to dump the heat by convection.

The bottom line is, as I mentioned earlier, you don't save any power using LEDs. You do, in theory, get a much longer life (if the heat problem can be resolved) and a whiter light.

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