I replaced my dome light bulb with an LED conversion, and did the same with the lights in the 2 front doors. Nothing terribly fancy, just 194 LED conversions, premade to order. The lighting is fantastic, but the craziest thing happened..The passenger door light stays on. Even after closing the doors the light stays on. I tested the door switch and it seems to be working fine, because it turns on and off the dome light. The drivers side one also works the dome light, as well as the door light on the drivers side. It gets better! Now I pull the bulb cuz Im not going to leave it on all night.. I try to put a regular bulb back in it to see what happens.. the regular bulb doesnt light up at all now!!
Does anyone know why this is? Anyone have a similar problem? I was wondering if it may have something to do with the lower power consumption of the LEDs, but these are simply just on/off with a switch, right? Not as if they are turn signals.. anyone? HELP!

DJ

 

uh... security light? that is really weird, though. it's like it's getting power from somewhere else.

 

try rotating the led 194 bulbs around when you insert them. mix and match on both sides

 

Yup.. tried that! If I turn the 194s around the other way in the socket, they dont work at all. They are polarity specific. The voltage or whatever is still enough for the switches on the other side, and also for the DEI security system to trigger upon door opening..
..and then theres the thing that when I pull the LED bulb out and put back in the regular bulb, it doesnt light at all! But the LED wont UNlight..
DJ

 

I got a full set of LED asemblies from Metal Maxima for my '96 (dome, map, both doors). I have the exact some problem only it's the driver side door that won't go off. These are 6 LED assemblies that he fabricated. They all work right but the driver side door won't go off even though the switch is operating properly. I have no clue what to do about it either.

 

You just got owned not to be rude. Now you have to replace the Smart Entrance Control Unit. I had the same problem with ignition switch light . I probably shorted the cicuit while attending to make 4 LED key ring. In the same way regular bulb didn't light up and LED always was on. Thanks GOD I had bumper to bumper warranty. I went to dealership and said that my key ring doesn't work so they replaced it with new SECU For FREE. Well I had to spend some $$$ for new key ring

 

Sortage usually occurs while you trying to find pos neg wires. Thus I don't think it's MEtal Maxes fault.

 

I'm not blaming Metal at all; he's one of the few stand up sellers that I have dealt with on the .org.

 

I have two related LED problems:

1. I encountered a major problem while installing Metal Maxima's door light LEDs. Since I'm a n00b with electric stuff and the instructions left out an apparently very important step—disconnecting the battery before you snip the OEM wires for the door lights—I didn't think twice and snipped and now my door-light wires appear to have no current. I think I shorted something. I don't see any blown fuses (at least not the likely ones like "Interior Lamps") and the dome light and everything else still works. Did I fry a wire somewhere??? Both the left and right side dome light wires are dead so thankfully that would seem to indicate that what's inside the door panel is OK. Is there another fuse somewhere that I should check? I need advice!

In another thread someone suggested I fried the BCM but wouldn't that make everything else inside stop working? Seems like there would be a fuse that would be designed to blow before any of these electronic units just fried.

2. Very weird problem with LED bulbs in my turn signals. I have four amber 1156 LED bulbs that I know to be working. I spent a long time finding the proper flasher unit so I could use them without load resistors. With the stock flasher unit, all four turn signal LED bulbs lit up properly but blinked twice as fast as they should due to low resistance. After installing the LED-compatible flasher unit (non-OEM), the rear two bulbs light up with hazards/turn signals but NOT the front two. But the kicker is, if I put stock incandescent bulbs in the front, however, they light up! So they're clearly getting current. And now if I put the stock flasher unit back in, the signals blink too fast AND THE LEDs IN FRONT STILL WON'T WORK. I'm stumped. Any ideas?

I hope we can shed some light on all this LED weirdness.

 

Here are some helpful threads...my first problem sounds like it could be just the window switch unit and my second problem might be related to a relay or the BCM.

Those of you who are experiencing door light problems on one side only, it sounds like you need to replace the window switch on that side first, and possibly both window switches.

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread.php?t=466262
http://forums.maxima.org/showthread.php?t=465658

Important quote from the second thread:

 

i know that all LED's have a voltage threshold. Meaning that they turn on at a certain voltage. It might be that the wire itself is transferring too much voltage even thought its suppose to be off. Trying putting a resistor on there. They're not too much from radio shack. I'd get 1k, 2k, and 5k resistor. just cut 2 pieces of wire. Put one of the wires to one side of where the bulb goes and the other wire to the other side. Hence now having a positive wire and a negative wire. Put the wires accordingly. But with the positive wire, now attach a resistor in between, hence dropping the voltage.

Here's a lil lesson about circuits.
V=voltage, I=current, R= resistor
Use a multimeter and measure the voltage across where you put the bulb with the door closed. If it reads more than 2 V, it means that your led is probably going to lite since i believe their threshold voltage is near that. Now sure your multimeter and measure the current. V=IR.

Example:
You use your multimeter and read 5 volts. You measured the current and read 1 mAmp. You want to drop about 3 volts. 5v-2v(led threshold voltage)
So you have your V and you have your I.
V/I=R, this would let you know how much of a resistor you most likely will need. 3v/1mA=3k resistor. I dont beleive that there is a 3k resistor, but you can put 3 1k resistors together to make a 3k resistor. Just make sure they're all touching.

P.S. this is just a quick fix, obviously there's something else to it since your regular bulb now won't turn on, which requires much more voltage than a LED

 

Thanks for all the input.. especially VQuick!! (originally Black Maximas info, so thanks to him too!!) I replaced the window switch, and all is fixed! YAY!

 

And if he didn't link that, I would of posted it. Good luck guys!!

 

I purchased a '99 master window switch for $9.95 on eBay...it was in perfect condition, truly a steal. Most seem to be going for more than that, although I saved a lot because it happened to be at a local salvage yard so I didn't have to pay the $12.50 for "shipping".

That fixed my driver side, but sure enough my passenger side is still out so I will have to replace that one too. I must have touched the wires when I was testing the LED on that side. I assume all 97-99 switches are interchangeable with each other.

Oh yeah, Metal Maxima's door light LEDs are BRIGHT....bordering on too bright, that's how blinding they are, but the look is awesome.

Has anyone thought about opening up the switch and trying to repair the lighting portion? Maybe something just needs to be reconnected/soldered.

 

Crazy thing is I tried replacing my security light with a brighter LED and it does the same thing, it won't turn off for $hit!!! So irritating!

 

So im really confused but what does the window switch have to do with the light? and by window switch you mean the swith to put the windows up and down right?

 

The window switch provides the power for the light, as well as the logic circuitry to turn the light on when the door is opened.

Yes, the thing that rolls the windows up and down...it does a lot more than that



Edit...2006 bump I see doubt you'll get answers from the earlier posters in this thread