Watup all,

I bought super-white LEDs for the door courtesy lamp:

TYP voltage = 3.4Vf
MAX voltage = 4Vf
Current = 30mAf
Reverse current (VR=5V)

I used a 270Ω plus 22Ω in series for the LED. I tested it, works fine.

Door wire harness:
red/green stripe (constant 12V)
red/white stripe

Here's the enigma : I close the door and the LED doesn't shut all the way off. It's hella dim but power is still running through this thing. Incandescant had no probs, I don't want to drain my battery. ANY insight appreciated.
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my homemade setup: cut PC board to fit in light fixture. Soldered 22 gauge wires to +/- terminals. pos.wire goes to series of resistors > pos. lead of LED. neg.wire goes to neg. lead of LED. (makes sense right?)

 

The LED won't drain your battery, but it seems like the door trigger is giving constant voltage or there is something holding a charge in those circuits.

 

I don't know why the door trigger would work fine for the incandescent but not the LED.

I put my voltmeter to the red/green and I get ~12V when the door is closed and open. red/white is 0 both ways, of course.

Any steps to troubleshoot this?

 

faulty door switch?

 

It's the same for both sides and with incandescants, no issue. Just weird how with constant current, the incandescant (and LED somewhat) knows to shut off.

Seems like this is just one of those weird things. I'll just leave it and maybe unplug them when I go for long trips??

Thanks for the reply tho.

 

I have LEDs in my doors and dome, when the car is on, they are always on very dimly. It's just because LEDs use so little power, that the current running through is enough to light them.

 

There's probably just a little bit of current going through it. An LED uses way less current then the normal bulb that goes in there. Is that a constant 12v wire even when the car is running? Also another way to make an LED appear dim is to pulse it rapidly. Either way many cars have an LED blinking whenever the car is off for alarm systems. So I wouldn't be worried a bit about your battery ending up dead because of it.

 

the blue LED that came with my viper alarm literally lights up my entire cabin at night when the car is armed. i think you should be fine.

 

awesome, good posts and good to know. Changing the resistance didn't change the luminoscity of the light in its dim setting (when doors all close) so yeah, it must be just "stray" current. maybe even hopping the distance from the opened door trigger switch.

thanks all.

 

Okay, I've been doing a bunch of research on this.

When your car is on the "door" setting, there is approximately 3.xx volts coming out of the lights. This is just enough to light the LEDs VERY dimly. But not enough to light an incandescent bulb at all.

The maxima (and coincidentally my Spec V) are run by a switched ground system, which means there is always 12.5 or 14.5 volts (depending on if the car is off/on respectively) going to the lamps, however, when the setting is on "door" the ground goes through the lighting control unit to ground the connections. I think that when the door is closed, it's going through a resistance circuit, and when the door is open, it completely grounds the lights, which in turn lights them up.

So the problem lies within the "Smart entrance control unit". thats why when it's in the "off" position, there is no problem.

Oh, for the step lamps, think of those as being in the "door" position permanently.

It's going to be VERY hard to fix this problem. I'm doing a lot of research to figure this out. I'll post up the fix when I find it.