1995 Eclipse....LED tail light conversion

[vzfox]

Just bought some LED tail lights for my car....they look awsome, but....

The turn signals flash at a high rate of speed. I have done some research on this and found that the flasher module located behind the radio is designed to detect bulb outages and low voltage readings. LED lights emit lower voltage than conventional bulbs, thus causing the "fast flash rate".

By reading up on this, I learned that there is a circuit that needs to be cut or eliminated within the flasher circuit board itself. I have the flasher circuit board in hand.....my question is

What line on the back of the circuit board controls the detection of "bulb outage/low voltage" so it can be eliminated thus having a normal flash rate with LED lights??

[SilvrEclipse]

I read something about this awile back. I beleive if you open up the flasher module there is a wire in there that controls how fast the blinkers flash. The wire puts a certain amount of resistence on the circuit and if you change that value then it will change the rate at which the blinkers flash. I will try and dig something up on it..

[vzfox]

Originally Posted by SilvrEclipse

I read something about this awile back. I beleive if you open up the flasher module there is a wire in there that controls how fast the blinkers flash. The wire puts a certain amount of resistence on the circuit and if you change that value then it will change the rate at which the blinkers flash. I will try and dig something up on it..

thanx, that would be awsome. As i am sure you are aware, our flasher modules arent like the conventional ones that plug into the fuse box...the 95-99 eclipse's have a rather LARGE flasher box located behind the radio.

[SilvrEclipse]

Yea I know, here is a link to a guy that converted to LED tail lights and shows how to adjust the flasher rate.

http://www.rcaz.com/rcaz/sub%20index...sher/index.htm

[vzfox]

so now I know where to find the wire piece that controls bulb outages and flash rate....only problem is I dont have a soldering iron and I wouldnt know what to put in its place. I guess I was hoping for a simple wire to cut to fix this fast flash rate problem, and since buying a new flasher box seems to be a difficult thing to find and probably expensive at that, i may decide to leave well enough alone and just have the blinkers flash "ghetto style fast".

the link was helpful and much appriciated....i just dont have the tools or knowledge to start "experimenting".

[SilvrEclipse]

Dude go buy a soldering iron for like 8$ from radio shack and get it fixed. Just experiement with different size wire. Its not going to be that hard.

[vzfox]

I realize it wouldnt be difficult to do, but I would like to know "exactly" what to do before I start screwing around with something that may end up causing wires to melt or worse. Surely you can understand.

I did try taking a 6 inch piece of wire and wrapping it around the "hoop" to cause more resistance as stated in the link you provided, but that did absolutely nothing. The guy in the link you provided stated that if LED's were used then his fix wouldnt work. He was simply taking stock bulbs out of the circiut.

If I knew I could go down to my local autozone or such and pick up another complete flasher box for $10 or so, then experimenting would be no problem but I cant seem to find our flasher box at any auto store local to me....and I live in a large city (Dallas).

[vzfox]

I went down to autozone a bit ago and bought some "load equalizers" specifically made for LED applications ($13). Installed them just as the instructions stated. They got hot as fire, just as the instructions stated they would....but they did absolutely nothing for my turn signal problem. They still blink as fast as they did without them.

Why is it every time I do a "simple" replacement of something, it always turns into weeks of

[SilvrEclipse]

The reason wrapping that piece of wire did nothing is because you did not change the resistence. Power will always travel the lest restrictive path so unless you force it to go through the wire nothing will change. Here is what I would do. Cut that stock loop out. Measure the resistence of the stock loop and then use something that is slightly high/lower (which ever slows the blinkers down) and see what that does. Keep going lower until you are satisfied with the results. Worst case is that you cant fix it and have to solder the stock loop back in.

[vzfox]

As skeptical as i was, i went ahead and tried your fix. I cut part of the hoop off and wrapped a 9 inch piece of fairly thin speaker wire around the two cut ends of the hoop. Low and behold, the very first try, my blinkers now flash at the normal rate of speed as they did with normal bulbs. I was really surprised that my first attempt at guessing a wire length and thickness was right on. I still dont have a soldering iron (thinking about getting one soon) so I just super glued the wrapped wire onto the cut hoop ends, folded the wire up and put the module back into its square casing. All lights work as they should and now my LED tail lights "really" look awsome.

thanx again "SilvrEclipse".....i never doubted you, i just hate cutting and modifying things that I cant easily replace.

[SilvrEclipse]

Glad you got it fixed.