Hey guys, quick question. Last night I tried installing the front LED turn signals. I did the driver side first by putting a 6 ohm 50 watt load resistor tied into the black and white wire and leaving the middle red wire alone; I then went on and replaced the bulb and tried it out, it worked fine with no hyper-flash. I proceeded onto the passenger side light and did the same thing, however I wasn't sure on which wires to hook up the load resistor wires to because they werent black, red, white, so I assumed to put them on the outside wires because that's how the drivers side was. When I went to test them, they didn't turn on, I then tried the turn signals and they worked (?) So I flipped the way the wires were hooked up on the resistor to the same wires on the passenger bulb but changing the ends of the resistor, tested it again with the same problem! So I put everything back to stock but when I went to take out the passenger side resistor, it was hot as hell!!! Can anyone help me with this problem? Sorry about the in depth story just trying to get out as much info as possible

 

Also when I took out the resistor on the driver side, I tested it and it worked, with no hyper-flash (?) after the fact I put the normal bulb and took out the resistor on the passenger side.

 

when I was (unsuccessfully) trying to install LED's in my rear lights, the resistor would get so hot I could not touch it. I gave up after trying numerous wiring combinations. Never could get them to work.

 

Maybe they were bad resistors, Were they the right ones? I did mine in the rear and got them to work and now the front wont work lol

 

I got two different pairs 25 watt and 50 watt neither worked.

 

Wow, 25 watt and 50 watt? Those are pretty big, shouldn't take anymore than a 10 watt resisitor.

What resistance were you trying?

 

i cant remember, maybe I meant 25 and 50 ohm, 10 watt...I have to check them again, its been awhile, at any rate, they were the recommended sizes and then I got larger ones thinking the first set was too small...

 

I had planed on putting yellow LEDs in my front lights and using a electronic flasher. Has anyone had experience with these? I haven't researched much yet but I did find this web site
http://www.ledlight.com/

 

I actually tried it again last night with the same problem however one of the bulbs started smoking! >=O I dont get it, i was actually thinking i might need one of those flashers instead of the load resistors for the front...

 

I've successfuly wired LED taillights into my truck's home-made flatbed (more on that later!)

I'm using 7-LED commercial-style signals from SoundOff signal. Before resistors, they were completely functionless. Not a damn thing worked - brakes, signal, or running lights. I was pissed, and thought I'd wasted my money. But I got them to work!

Based on my experience :

You are using far to *little* resistance. I started with 330 ohm 1/2 watt resistors. At 12V, they were dissipating about .44 watts, and were quite toasty.

Now I use 470 ohm 1/2 watt resistors. I'm planning one final wiring rebuild, and will probably jump to 1000 ohm.

I use two resistors per taillight. IDK about your LED's, but mine have two circuits each ('lo' and 'hi' output). I install one resistor in parallel with each circuit. 100% perfect functionality, and awesome brightness.

I got the idea from installing my incandescent bulbs in parallel with the LED's - when the bulbs were in, all was well. Bulbs out, LED's shut down. I can't explain it well, but as long as the truck 'feels' an additional current path, everything works great. It doesn't really have to dissipate any power at all. At first I thought I had to simulate the OEM incandescent filaments - which had resistances of about 1 and 3.5 ohms. Good luck finding cheap resistors to dissipate that kind of wattage. So I went out and bought a $1 pack of RadioShack resistors, and voila!

Just remember, those resistors have to hold back 12V without popping - go with at least 470 ohms. I hope it works, it did for me!