LED Error Free on the cheap DIY

[wbarfels]

nice, now the poleece (police) will be able to see that tag from a 2 miles away! Nice write up

Honestly, not that worried about that one...If the "poleece" are in a situation where they need to see my plate, then Im getting pulled over unless you want to try to outrun a helicopter.

And yeah, Do LED's save power (when not used with resistors) yes, But Like he said it is sooooooooo little that it dosnt matter. Well maybe if your interior is all LED and you left the interior lights on all night.. But for plat lights that come on with your Lights...I mean If that Increased HP or something that just Dim you dash lights and turn the clock off before the race!! he he

[gc325is]

Any reason the change in resistor from the 82 Ohm pictured to the 47 Ohm recommended. Did the error light come on with 82 ? Also is there enough room to just wrap the resistor leads around LED circular connector base a few times. That way the resistor and bulb are installed as one unit.

[LazyAmerican]

Cool. I was thinking about doing this. Now I just might! What ebay seller did you get the LEDs from? I did a search but nothing like your pic came up. I guess I will just keep an eye out

[Eric93se]

No problem, Im just glad I could help! And if 47 Ohm will work, you should go with that, it wont generate as much heat, or use as much Juice!

The lower the resistance the more power being drawn = more heat dissipated (shit will get hotter).

You want to use the highest resistance possible that will not set off the OBD.

[LockDots]

You want to use the highest resistance possible that will not set off the OBD.

This.

[wbarfels]

Any reason the change in resistor from the 82 Ohm pictured to the 47 Ohm recommended. Did the error light come on with 82 ? Also is there enough room to just wrap the resistor leads around LED circular connector base a few times. That way the resistor and bulb are installed as one unit.

The 82 was setting off the error light, whereas the 47 Does not..

There is enough room do that, But I wouldn't, Because Like i said it's best to have just the corner of the Resistor touching the LED, and The resistor being tied to the contacts actually makes it so the Resistor Holds the LED Firmly in place. The 47 Ohm 10 watt is the same size only Twice as long, which makes it an even better fit, and it dosnt get nearly as hot....

Now Dont hold me to this, but The Higher the Resistance it would seem the more heat will build up in the resistor.

Cool. I was thinking about doing this. Now I just might! What ebay seller did you get the LEDs from? I did a search but nothing like your pic came up. I guess I will just keep an eye out

Right here http://item.ly/150471585357 3.95 for 2 free shipping!

[m2pc]

Now Dont hold me to this, but The lower the Resistance it would seem the more heat will build up in the resistor.

Fixed.

[Eric93se]

Now Dont hold me to this, but The Higher the Resistance it would seem the more heat will build up in the resistor.

This is basic ohms law stuff my friend:

P = (V^2)/(R)

Power in watts is equaled to the voltage squared divided by the resistance in ohms.

So as you lower resistance you increase the power draw.

Unfortunately a lot of car audio guys don't understand this and I even know installers that don't understand this. They think well an amp is rated at that much power so that is what it must be putting out, big time wrong. Its the load that the speakers put on the amp and depends on how they are wired (series/parallel) and their final impedance.

I feel bad for people that spend thousands at a car audio shop and don't get what they paid for.

[LockDots]

This is basic ohms law stuff my friend:

P = (V^2)/(R)

Power in watts is equaled to the voltage squared divided by the resistance in ohms.

So as you lower resistance you increase the power draw.

Unfortunately a lot of car audio guys don't understand this and I even know installers that don't understand this. They think well an amp is rated at that much power so that is what it must be putting out, big time wrong. Its the load that the speakers put on the amp and depends on how they are wired (series/parallel) and their final impedance.

I feel bad for people that spend thousands at a car audio shop and don't get what they paid for.

you and I are a dying breed my friend.

[wbarfels]

I totally understand that on a car audio level (I have 3 dual 6 ohm subs subs in one of my cars wired to a 4 ohm load) and I was sure to use a dual 2 ohm wired in series to 4 ohms for my solobaric 10. I also avoided the initial class D amps that used low Impedance to push alot of power between 20 and 250 HZ, at the cost of dynamic headroom. (Especially the Soundstream Junk from 98 that was rated at 1/4 watt at 4 ohms ETC to get around IASCA Watt Classes)
(I use to be a Car Audio Junkie, and have quite a few Sq and Sq+ Iasca Trophys)

But I was thinking that for some reason a 5watt 82 ohm would have more heat built up in the Resistor itself than a 10 watt 47 ohm....Not total power flow. And that's why I added the Caviat "Now Dont hold me to this" in my post.

[Eric93se]

We're not calling you stupid or anything

The 10 watt resistor is just capable of dissipating 10 watts of heat. The 5W is capable of 5 watts of heat. The 10 watt needs to be bigger than the 5w because it needs more surface area. So in effect when the 10W is doing its thing and the 5W is doing its thing, they will almost feel the same to the touch because the surface area is almost twice on the 10W resistor. The area/watt is almost the same.

[wbarfels]

as usual, flyfish is right on the money!

[johnnybayonne]

Thanks........great write-up, just got mine from www.jlevistreetwerks.com & your DIY worked like a charm!


Jb

[Bio Hazzard]

Just did something kinda stupid, read the guide quickly, bought some resistors and wired it up. This probably seems like a stupid thing that no one would ever make the mistake of doing, but I did I thought that the OBD measured the effective voltage in various components on board the car, but it fact it measures the effective current. So I wired it up and soldered everything inside of the trunk lid in PARALLEL, and as a result the effective voltage decreased. Then I turn on my lights to see if the OBD error is still there and it was D: Then I spend like two seconds looking back at the guide to suddenly realize that I made a stupid mistake, should have wired it in serial not parallel. Spent the good part of a day rewiring it but at least now I have no OBD error message!

Also if your not a big fan of wiring stuff in your boot you could use this trick which chas3 posted on xoutpost.com

"The LED inside the reverse camera camera are not error free. You will have to either do the resistor trick, or use NCS Expert/Navcoder/etc to disable bulb testing for the license plate. The values for NCS Expert are:
Code:"

KALTUEBERWACHUNG_KZL
nicht_aktiv
WARMUEBERWACHUNG_KZL_LI
nicht_aktiv

[Pdwight]

Was it 47 ohms at 5 watts, seems a metal film resistor would work well here. As for the old days Ohms Law was first semester stuff for me back in the early 70's.

As for guessing polarity use a meter and mark it with a red sharpie under the lens to be sure. I plan on doing some LED conversions to my 323 (Only stuff that the lens cover will hide)

Thanks
Dwight

[xlDooM]

After running behind newer BMWs occasionally and realizing that the blue light really makes your car look a lot more modern from a distance, I bought some on ebay myself.

I chose a version with much slimmer smd leds. They look just like the original bulbs in size, only come with 8 leds. They cost me 3 and a half euros, 8 euros with shipping (lol, Europe...). Here are some pictures in case someone wants to get the same ones.



Installation is as easy as you promised. I did need to pry with a screwdriver (protecting the paint with a piece of plastic), because the cups were stuck to the trunklid with what looked like a rubberish seal.

Here's one of them out with the led bulb installed:


I'm not too worried about them rotating because they have so little mass, but I'll keep an eye on them anyway. They're not omnidirectional like the original bulbs. Also, since I have a euro version, I need not worry about error codes for burnt out bulbs, cause we don't have those error codes (we just honk at people who have a light out ).

You can see the difference in color with the original bulb in this pic (whoa!):

And this lousy pic (cam settings were off but it looked like it was going to rain so I didn't spend any time on it) gives an idea of the difference in output.


I was already very pleased with the result. When I put the cups back in, I noticed they were very loose. Afraid of rattle damage, I put a few small dabs of transparent silicone around the inner rim, that oughta work without creating a nightmare if I ever need to swap them out again.

Turns out it didn't start raining, so after I finished the job I took a better picture of the new lights. I think it's perfect, a bit brighter than the original orange bulbs, but not inconspicuously bright either. And the color really does make a big difference. Our cars have one of the sportiest back ends of the last two decades, and it looks bang up to date with the blue lights.



Thanks wbarfels for the original idea and writeup! It may not be a hard job by any means (took me 25 minutes total, most of which were spent looking for suitable adhesive and then cleaning up the tip of the silicone tube), but it's nice to have all the info beforehand (e.g. which side to pry out first) and I never would have thought about this cheap mod myself. Cheers!

[wbarfels]

Im getting ready to do this again to my new E36..... Btw, did you find this on a search, or on my Sig?

It seems to work really well with the 9 LED Wide festoon since once you put it in with the Resistor, it stays in place....Although some silicone or even Hot glue is a good idea.

I was at Radio shack the other day, and I was surprised to find that they had the Resistors needed (25-70 ohm, 10 watt) with 30 to 50 being the sweet spot...... I thought Radio Shack had totally sold their soul, but apparently a few of them are starting to stock some basic electronic parts again!!!

[xlDooM]

Im getting ready to do this again to my new E36..... Btw, did you find this on a search, or on my Sig?

I read it a few weeks back when it was hovering near the top. It took me a while to decide to do it myself, and I figured I'd bump it back up for other people with ugly orange license plate lights

[wbarfels]

This would be a good DIY to be posted to the DIY section........anyone know a MOD?

[Pdwight]

I just finished replacing all the interior lights on my 323 with LED panels. I was able to get everything behind or in the original fixtures so it looks totally stock. I used "White" led panels and did the foot wells, dome light reading lights....everything inside. I also used a festoon panel on my trunk light but also added another panel of 12 SMT's by running a cable above the metal support under the back window, attached the panel using some 3M foam tape designed for auto trim work and now the trunk is really lit up at night and you cannot see the panel unless you stick your head in the trunk upside down...no wires hanging out at all. If I had every light inside lit including the trunk open all the leds would draw less current than 3 OEM festoon light. The 12 SMT panel only draws .10 amps. I can find anything in my trunk at night now.

[wbarfels]

I need to post a pick of how I converted the rear lights in my 323IS into 24 LED's on each side, along with 48+12 on the front dome light by itself....

[xlDooM]

I don't really want to touch the interior lights because I love that amber ambience (ain't that poetic) at night, it's so cosy.

[Pdwight]

Yes I want to see that too. I don't know why people oppose LED's. If done properly their life is way beyond that of the car and little to no heat to discolor plastic lenses.

[lasmariaspr]

Help me solve my led mystery. I bought five led bulbs off Ebay, pretty cheap from China. The two for the windshield work just fine. Connected the two in the back pillars, ans also fine, problem came when I installed my front bulb. They worked, but wouldn't turn off completely. They would stay on with a low voltage, barely noticeable. so i changed back to the regular bulb in front, and all's well. Would like all the led bulbs on when I open my doors.

[Pdwight]

Its called leakage or reverse current flow...not good. You need to take a meter and check for polarity at each place you are using the led panels. I had this in one panel and discarded it.