LED interior and puddle lights?

[Skauber]

Hi all!

I was attempting to brighten up things a bit with LED bulbs in the interior lights and puddle lamps in my '05 Expedition. But, it seems to have introduced a parasitic draw on my battery, this morning it was cranking quite slow, but started. I've now pulled the bulbs and I'm going to put normal bulbs back in there, but I'm wondering, why does this happen? I've looked at the wiring diagram, and as far as I can see, it must be something to do with the output from the instrument cluster for the slow on/slow dim feature which doesn't like to have LED bulbs connected to it, as the LEDs do have some sort of circuitry in there... Anyone else tried this?

 

[Gruz7]

I have just the dome and map lights done in my 2006 and they seem to be fine been in for about a month now and haven't had any issues... Also purchased from superbrightleds.com


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[Skauber]

The ones I got came from dealextreme.. It's really puzzling, doesn't make sense that they would cause a parasitic draw...

 

[racerx3317]

I haven't tried this on an expy, being that mine was totaled but I have LED bulbs in the map lights on my other car. They always have a slight glow with the car off. They never shut completely off. I asked and I was told that was normal with LEDs. It shouldn't be drawing any extra power though, if anything LEDs are supposed to draw less.

 

[stamp11127]

LED's will "shut off" when current is removed. If you are still seeing a slight glow the circuit is still powered.

 

[Gruz7]

Yeah on my 06 the superbrightleds on the interior shut off instantly


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[racerx3317]

Apparently normal. The current from the BCM is enough for them to glow according to other owners and the manufacturer. Go figure.

 

[Skauber]

I've found that the LEDs damaged the circuit inside the instrument cluster responsible for the soft on/soft off feature. Apparently, this circuit cannot handle a capacitive load, which many LED bulbs with active circuitry do represent. It can only handle a pure resistive load such as incandescent bulbs represent. This means that I have to replace the instrument cluster in order to remove the 480 mA constant draw from the battery, even with all light off and ignition off. I pulled fuse 21 for now, that removes the power to the interior light circuit in the instrument cluster, and renders me without lights when I open the door, they still work when turning on manually though. I will attempt to replace the components which seems to be on this circuit inside the instrument cluster to see if I can fix it, it's about 10 bucks worth of capacitors and two voltage regulators. If this doesn't cure the problem, I'll have to shop around for a used instrument cluster....

Don't mess around with cheap LEDs! They may end up costing you more than you'd like!

 

[GAINMOB]

all my lights are led...every light socket and all I had to do was change my flasher relay...and I used cheap bulbs from ebay...for 2 yrs and didn't have a prob...then I switched to superbrightled.com

 

[zukman31]

I have changed all bulbs inside my Expedition with the Ebay lights. Bot a problem at all. Has been working problem free for a little over a year now.