NEW LED's
 

Has anyone experienced issues when installing LED's in their car?

I ordered some form Home - Your LED Shop and two of them did not work. I called the company and they said they "test them before they ship" and I believe that but fact is two were not working when I received.

I am just wondering if I am doing something wrong, I know their polarized and rotated them but no luck. I have one Dome not working and one License Plate not working.

Suggestions? Or has anyone else has issued with these bulbs? There company does not seem to want to Email me back, a bit frustrating.


Thanks All! :tiphat:

When I installed mine I could have sworn that I flipped them when they didnt work, and they still didnt work. I got so pissed that I came on the forum looking for something else I could have done wrong. I figured Id try flipping them again even though I was positive I did so, and bam - LEDs turned on. Try one more time, if it fails, contact the vendor.

I have tried several times, BUT I will try again. The vendor does nto seem to want to respond!

Thanks for the suggestion!

Ok.

1) companies that test LED's give a small pulse through them of 100 mA for 20 ms to see if they turn on which is far from what the thing will see.

2) High Intensity LED's are recommended to be run at 350mA Constant Currant.

3) the Vf (foward Voltage) is very important and will vary greatly because I highly doubt these guys are bin controlling their purchases... Anyways... its around 2.9 to 3.7 Volts per LED. and so depending if they are wired in series you could need upwards of 8 volts to run just two led.

4) by the same idea... if you LED's are in a parallel ciruict which they usually are.. you will now need 700mA to power two up..


So make sure your car can provide the required Juice... high power LED will not turn on at low currents.

Also make sure you can provide 350mA constant current and you did not jolt them with 1 Amp or so and burn them out... You can buy off the shelf 350mA current drivers from digikey.

While rare... you might have ESD'd the LED and it died... its like any circuit... give it a static charge and probability is you killed it... while rare on LED's it happens.

Also make sure you are keeping this cool. As stated before... LED's can hold up to 130C junction temp before complete failure... just turning it on if not properly heat sinked will get you those temps.


and the last one make sure the positive is to positive negative to negative... usually these star boards the LED come on, have 4 pads, and its easy to connect to both positives.

http://www.ledsupply.com/images/xp-g_ico.jpg

two pads are positive, two negative. you should be able to see the traces and figure it out.

hope this helps.

Thanks for all the suggestions, I did rotate them again and no luck.

BUT I did hear back from The LED Shop and they are sending me 2 replacement bulbs with no hassle. Little delay in the Email, but great customer service.

They were DOA?or they worked then failed?

they turned on then off, they would occasionaly turn on but VERY dim ...

the ones that worked however are great ... good color and very bright

I had a few of the map light LEDs crap out on me after only a day or two. Cliff was always very good about sending me replacements. The others I've had no problems and they look great.

I concur - I had one of my map lights go out after about a week, and the second one would only light up at about 1/4th power (very dim). Cliff has replaced both units without question

Excellent customer service.