Isn't a jarring turn or brake signal exactly what you want? Awaken people from their driving stupor and all that.
-Curt Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2012 23:38:43 -0700 From: Jim Cathey <j...@windwireless.net> To: Mercedes Discussion List <mercedes@okiebenz.com> Subject: Re: [MBZ] Well that was fun Message-ID: <3b1ca964-c735-11e1-a377-000502d9a...@windwireless.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed > LED bulbs are great at lowering the amperage over all. So? > The problem I now have is that they are not playing well with the > blink relay. Naturally. As a convenience/safety feature they're calibrated to require the correct load in order to flash at the normal speed. You will need to open up the relay and find the timing components (R, C) and change them to no longer care about the proper load. A nice bit of reverse-engineering. (My towing flasher in the pickup does not have that variable-speed feature. It's different than the 'normal' flasher.) Of course, if one of your lights _does_ fail you will no longer have any warning about this. Series resistance is not what you need. To make the flasher run at the right rate you need a _parallel_ resistance, and rather a small one, to restore the current draw that the relay expects. So, having done that what was the point of all this work? I find that light bulbs last a very long time, and I _really_ hate the jarring fast strobe on/off cycle of the LED lights. The slower rate of lumens change of an incandescent bulb is _much_ less jarring to the people looking at 'em. > One would think the chinese would have known this was an issue and > just put a dang resister in their little lights A resistor that consumes nearly what the old incandescent did? For a turn light, maybe a 20W resistor? It'll get just as hot as a light bulb, and so will need to be in a physical package much the size of a light bulb. What was the point again? -- Jim _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com