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Front/Rear LED Indicators


jamess115

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Ok, I know there has been a lot of discussion about this so I am going to try and make this relatively painless with a question I cannot find the answer to on the forum. I want to replace both front & rear (not side) indictors with LED bulbs. Does anyone know what bulb wattage i'm looking for and whether this is simply a plug and play exercise if I use CANBUS bulbs ? Thanks for any help

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Thanks, I have read that post too but as far as i'm aware, canbus bulbs have the necessary resistors. I could consult with CS2000 but just wanted to post in case anyone else out there knows the amperage of OEM indicator bulbs and whether these canbus bulbs are simply plug and play without any other fiddling

Edited by jamess115
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I've just changed my sidelights over to canbus led bulbs, fitted straight in and no CEL warning.. Not much but it's a start for you....

 

Oops I see your just referring to indicators.. My bad

Edited by Martinjj
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Cheers guys :thumbs:

 

Il stick the reply here so as anyone else can see it as I've been asked it a few times ;)

 

The way I understand it, the 350 doesn't have a sophisticated system of alerting you of a blown bulb. Newer, posher cars can tell you on their in car screens specifically which bulb has blown, this is done using some gadgetry which measures resistance. Cars like ours simply flash that 'circuit', (ie, if your drivers sidelight blows, the indicators on that side all flash at 2x speed) this isn't by design, but just a useful quirk of the way the flasher relays work.

 

Canbus bulbs work to 'defeat' the more advanced bulb warning systems, they have no effect on older warning systems such as ours.

 

The way to do it is using load resistors. These are generally (for some reason) gold lumps of metal with one wire coming out of either side. You use scotch locks and connect them between the + and - wires that power the indicators, almost like a short circuit. All they essentially do is waste electricity, turning it to heat via resistance which keeps the flasher relays happy. To make this work correctly you should be looking at 4x 50w load resistors as you need one for each corner of the car. You also have to mount them directly to the cars inner metal body as they get rather warm.

 

It is possible, and the explanation makes it sound worse than it is, I've done it previously with my Celica. The largest issue you will find is getting bulbs that are bright enough, the correct colour and that fit inside the light cluster. You can normally get 2/3 of these but I previously never found one that satisfied all 3 criteria. So to answer your last question, you want the highest powered bulbs you can find, amber seems to be a hard colour to get bright in LED world, so you will never have a bulb that's illegally bright, obviously stay at 12-14v rated bulbs as that's what your battery supplies.

 

The bulbs I used were fine MOT wise (passed two of them), but we're basically invisible in the daylight as they were too dim.

 

Hope that helps, feel free to ask more questions if needed :)

Edited by cs2000
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Nice one Chris. Thanks for your time with the question. I know a lot of people have opted for Silvertec, I will probably switch to them instead

That's exactly what I did.

Look much better than the standard orange bulbs and work pretty much just as good. The only thing that lets them down a little is that in day light they are a bit dimmer than the standard orange bulbs but still pass the MOT and are visible enough. ;)

 

Link: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ULTRA-SILVERTEC-CAPLESS-INDICATOR-SILVER-T20-BU582S-X2-/170888789444?pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item27c9c3fdc4

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