Hey folks,

I changed out the security LED in my Maxima (99 SE) tonight with a superbright blue one, RadioShack 2600mcd 3.7v one. I used the stock resistor thats in the SECURITY module. Everything appears to work, the LED comes in, its nice and bright, however, it doesn't flash properly.

The LED gets slightly dim and then bright, but it never flashes from a totally off state, it goes slightly dim and then bright again.

Anyone know what I need to do to get it to flash properly?

Also the resistor that is in the SECURITY module, does anyone know where to buy those? I'm pretty good at wiring things up and using resistors/transistors etc. but in all my electronics life, I've never seen a resistor in that type of package. Does anyone know the specific name of that type of resistor, the one with two metal contacts on each end?

Thanks

 

I'm not sure what the resistor rating is valued at in the factory alarm system, but it is not made to handle the higher brightness LED in your case. The reason why your LED fluctuates in brightness is because of the low value resistor in the security module. The blue LED's votage draw and milliamps are exceed the value of the amount of current needed to supply the LED. The correct value of the resistor will correct this. What I would do, is just bypass the factory resistor altogether and wire it up to another resistor. A good website in determining the correct values of resistors and the type of LED's your installing is "theledlight.com". Here, it will explain a formula in supplying the right amount of current and value of the resistor in powering the type of LED you're using.