Hai guyz, two questions

Does anyone know how the front and rear turn signals are wired on the 4th gen?

I know they flash in unison, and that a burnt out bulb on one end will hyperflash on the other end.

Does this mean that the turn signal flasher is directly wired to both 1156 bulbs?

Secondly, what is the response like for normal turn signal flashers at different loads.

i.e. I know that with a 54w load (two 1156s), there will be normal flashing. With a 27w load (one bulb out), there will be hyperflashing.

However, what if there is a load somewhere between that? Like maybe a 40w load? Would it hyperflash, or flash normal, or go somewhere in between?

And what if there was a load higher than that? Like a 75w load? Would it cause damage? Would it slow down the flashing, or would it work?

 

I think that the flashing rate is inversely proportional to the load. In other words less load means faster flashing. The flasher is probably rated at 57 watts or so. I don't really think its wise to exceed that by any appreciable amount. A couple watts might be ok, but too much and your liable to burn up the flasher.

The bulbs are wired in parallel I think. So the two positives are connected together and the two negatives are connected together.

 

All the lights should be on the same circuit, I wd assume.

Adding more lights to the circuit may cause u to blow the fuse.

Check EL page of the FSM.

 

I'm replacing the turn signal bulbs with brighter ones. I'll do a write-up if it works out - it seems to be under $30, and should significantly improve safety, especially for people with smoked or tinted signals.

I think I might order a universal electronic flasher (rated from 0 to 150 watts, same speed no matter what), and check the fuse. If it's a 5A, I'll go to the next highest step. If it's 10A per side, I should be fine.

 

Interesting project. I wondered what you were doing. What wattage were you planning on using? Why not just use a more efficient light source like an LED?

 

LED plug-and-play bulbs are really dim, which would only compound the problem (I have ebay red/smoke tails and ebay smoke bumper lights, so you can see them fine during the day, just not quite as well as the OEM ones)
The other LED option would be a DIY retrofit, which I know how to do, but I just don't have the funds for it at the moment. Maybe in the future, I'll start doing LED projects as well.

Bulbs are 1295
They're a 37.5w bulb (vs. 27w for 1156)
The 1295 is 50 cp of light, versus only 32 cp for the 1156.

So lightly tinted signals with a 1295 should be as bright if not brighter than the factory signals with 1156, and should at least improve the brightness of the factory signals.

 

I definitely understand the cost factor. The thing with LEDs is that to drive a high power one properly, you need a constant current driver. While an incandescent light gets brighter with more voltage, an LED will get brighter when you apply more current to it. There are option available on the market to drive at 350mA, 700mA, 1A, and 1.4A. Anything higher and you need to go custom. However, 1.4A of LED light is hella bright.

I know the 2.6 amp mountain bike headlamp I built would throw a beam 300 yards before I put a diffusor on it. The realy nice setups use lens, like HID projectors.

 

I have a couple Rebel tri-stars and a SSC P7 on my desk right now, actually (for something not car-related)

The issue I forsee with the tri-star is luminance. They're about 300 lumens, the same brightness as a amber-tinted 1156 incandescent.

However, they have much higher luminance. The surface area of the emitter is only a few square millimeters. This means that, although they will technically put out the same light, they'll have the people behind me seeing spots because of how high the luminance is. It's 300 lumens from maybe 10 square millimeters of total emitter area, which will be a lot of glare versus having 300 lumens from a reflector that's 25 square centimeters. And, it will be more difficult to see. At Maxus, I hated driving behing 5th gens because most of them had all-clear taillights with PnP LED bulbs. So when they signal, it's only a tiny circle of red or amber light, which is easy to lose inside a big white reflector.

That's why so many OEM applications of LEDs in tail lights are always at least 9 emitters (never seen smaller than a 3x3 square). They're spread out, so the light is at least 3" x 3", and each LED has a small reflector around it. AFAIK, they're lambertians, so the reflector gives it a nice big surface area to emit from, which lowers luminance while still having a good luminous intensity, which is a good thing for signalling applications.

One way to DIY it is to get a bunch of Superflux small LEDs, and spread them out in the housing very well, and you can get some awesome results from it. But, it's probably going to be $200+ for all of the parts. I'll probably end up making a pair anyway (just like how 2 years ago I wasn't gonna retrofit because it was too expensive, and now I'm on my 3rd one), but not right now.

I've ordered the bulbs, and I gotta pick up the flasher in the store, then I'll try to do a write up on it.

 

I do led bumper lights for 120 installed. It wont cost you 200 plus to do it.

 

Nalc,

I used the P7 for my project. Cree has another, the MC-E I think that is comparable to the P7 except the four dies are all wired individually, so you can put them in series or parallel or a combination to suit your design needs.

I think the P7 or another similar LED would be ideal to put inside a lamp enclosure because a lot of the light is projected out from the sides of the emitter, just like an incandescent which the enclosures were designed for. The P7 is rated at 2.8 amps IIRC but you could always just give it 1.4 or so.

I thought about doing my rears with a bunch of small suraface mount parts then potting them in epoxy. I like LED lights, but I don't like how you can see each source individually. It's much more aesetically pleasesing to see one large, consistant area of light.

I was going to use the Rebels in my next lighting project, because the availibility of optics is good for that emitter. I had to settle for a reflector with the P7 and I got a hot spot, and not much splash, hence the need for the diffuser. Oh, and at 2.667 amps, the P7 gets really hot. I have something like 60+ square inches of Al to cool it, and in free convection, it gets too hot to touch.

 

See thats my thing, I like the lil bitty lights . I was never a fan of the led tails on the caddy that utilized a defuser. IMHO it takes away from being led. You can always use reflectors around the leds to fill more space. they make them for all sorts of leds nowadays.

 

I'll see what my financial situation is like over the summer. I bet I can do a full LED conversion for about $250.

I gotta do my headlights first, though.