gavin68

I'm in the process of installing 6ohm 50w resistors (which several other forums on this site said I should use) in the tail lamps. I just installed one to work on the tail light (but not on the brake light wire yet), and it works fine, but the resistor is getting hot!! Should I try to adhese it onto the side panel near the brake lamp wiring? Or will it melt?

I'm doing this in order to get my cruse control working again, otherwise I wouldn't be bothering with it.

Amerikaner83

iTrader: (17)

um...

how will LEDs in the tail lamps get the cruise control working? Is your brake pedal switch working properly? If not, that's the cause of your cruise control issue...

gavin68

The CC stopped working after I installed LED bulbs in the tail lamps last year, so I searched on here and the general consensus seems to be that these bulbs will stop the CC from working. I'm sure if I put the incandecents back in, the CC would work just fine.

cajun1104

I had the same problem. I only had to install one resistor on each of the brake lights. It solved my cruise control problems. I screwed the resistors to the metal panel directly behind the tail lights. I haven't had any heat issues.

DennisMik

iTrader: (2)

Due to an amazing design feature by nissan, if a tail light burns out, the cruise control won't work. Since led lamps use so much less current than the incandesent lamps, when you install leds, the car thinks it has a burned out tail lamp.

I would love to hear the logic behind that design, but then, I probably wouldn't agree that it was logical. BTW, the 4th gen is the same in this aspect.

TunerMaxima3000

iTrader: (4)

LED's actually appear to the sensing circuit to be using TOO MUCH power.
the low power usage of the LED's requires HIGH resistors in the LED assembly to lower the applied power to the actual LED.
This shows up as an excessively high resistance, or more commonly, a blown Bulb (infinite resistance)

But yeah, the cruise control won't work properly, the brake switch is used to power the brake lights as well as disable cruise and inform ECU that the brakes are being applied (throttle cut out on DBW)
Some cars have 2 switches, but Nissan used only one (actually smarter, less things to break, less manufacturing cost also). This type of tampering with the Bulbs is the only real downfall.

I ALWAYS advise people to buy the proper resistors for this stuff. It costs a bit more, but cars have literally burned because of this crap.

Those resistors will get considerably hotter than that big Incandecent bulb. Anyone who's grabbed one of them after it's been on knows they get smoking hot. Ok now imagine about 130-150% higher temperature on those resistors, because they have no real way to release that heat, a bulb does this with it's light output and in it's gas internals, as well as it's overall design.

The Resistors you have are meant to be mounted to a "heat sink", not just left wherever. This is the PROPER way to use those resistors. Do a little googling on good "heat sink" material, buy some, and mount them to it.

You would have been better getting this, for the next time. Note the large insulating material, coupled with a large finned heat sink shell:

gavin68

So I only need to apply the resistors to the brake light wires? The tail light wire (constantly on with parking lights/headlights) won't affect cruise control?

And thank you Tuner, I'll take a look tomorrow. I'm just going to use incandecents until I can do this the right way.

TunerMaxima3000

iTrader: (4)

Just a thought, I always say it, there's really no LED's on the market (under $90+ EACH) that are worth putting in there. They won't be brighter than stock incandecents in our tailights.

Unless you're doing something custom, have found some sick bulb that isn't too expensive, or have spent a crap-pile on some fancy LED bulb, the whole thing is pretty much pointless and not worth the time or money.

Just my $0.02 on tailight/rear turn signal LED's on this car.

jluna1

Try putting the resistor in an aluminum bracket. That is what I did and the heat is dispersed better.

TunerMaxima3000

iTrader: (4)

^ Cool idea, nice work dude!

I see that you already have the 'proper' resistor with a heat sink built into the unit though

jluna1

V-Leds sells them. What I did is buy the turn signal resistor with the bracket attached and added 2 6 Ohm resistors to each bracket.