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Post by gdouaire on Jan 25, 2015 8:12:40 GMT -6
Changed the lights in the steering wheel controls on a 2nd gen. Used 12 volt LED's. The OEM lights are soldered into place, so you have to solder the LED into place. You also need to check polarity with LED. Once the switch was taken apart, I went back into my car, plugged the circuit board into the connector and tested the voltage. Turns out that the leftmost connector is positive, for both switches. The LEDs are not as bright as the OEM lights, but that will be enough.   |
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Post by gdouaire on Jan 25, 2015 18:55:35 GMT -6
Green LED's would have been better. 3mm 12v green LED.
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Post by sall on Jan 25, 2015 19:01:18 GMT -6
Mount the LED so the dome sits straight up. A strawhat LED would likely work well. Looks like the design used the 360* disbursement of the filament bulb. LED light is directional. Not sure what you mean by 12v LED.
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Post by guy48065 on Jan 26, 2015 11:44:26 GMT -6
Some LEDs have a built-in resistor so they can be wired straight to 12V and not burn out. There's no room on the tiny circuit board for resistors.
I agree the LED should be mounted facing up--they don't put out much light to the sides. Besides, in the picture the LED looks like it would interfere with the rubber buttons.
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Post by gdouaire on Jan 26, 2015 19:12:30 GMT -6
By "12v" I meant 12 volts LED, which are working directly without resistor.
The LED do not interfere with the buttons -- tested before everything was put back into place. But I will 1) replace the leds with green ones 2) mount the leds top up.
Somebody could use 1.5v leds and put the resistor inline in the wiring connector.
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Post by awehlage on Jan 28, 2015 19:15:08 GMT -6
SMD resistor inline with the LED is what I did. Have to figure 14.4V to find proper resistance value. Do not put 12V in for resistance calculator. You will get burnt out LEDs in no time.
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Post by sall on Jan 29, 2015 8:04:15 GMT -6
Yes anything current limited for 12v will not last in the auto environment. The '12v' LEDs have a resistor inside the LED itself and are typically grossly underrated. LEDs have all sorts of varying forward voltages as well. Even LEDs from the same cheap un-binned batches will vary from one to another.
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Post by guy48065 on Jan 29, 2015 20:09:38 GMT -6
I experimented with some once and adjusted the voltage down to about 5v with no change in brightness, up till it burned out at 20v. I think it's more accurate to say they have a built-in regulator. Not sure about others...
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Post by awehlage on Jan 30, 2015 6:30:14 GMT -6
I don't know of an LED with a Vf that is 5V so it was full brightness because they are usually between 2.3V-3.8V depending on the color.
I have blown many "12V regulated LEDs" by showing it 15V. The ones I've used do not like it at all.
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Post by sempar on Feb 5, 2015 16:17:07 GMT -6
Are the lights soldered into the white base, and the base plugs into the receptacle mounted to the PCB? Just had a couple of bulbs burn out this week... one on either side of course, so I'll tackle the replacement this weekend. THe FSB tells you to remove the SRS fuse, the SRS under dash connector and then remove the SRS module. That seems like overkill to me....
John
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Post by gdouaire on Feb 7, 2015 6:54:23 GMT -6
THe FSB tells you to remove the SRS fuse, the SRS under dash connector and then remove the SRS module. That seems like overkill to me.... John the white plastic things on the PC board are just spacers / reflectors -- the light wires are twisted around these "spacers" and it's the wires that are soldered on the board. As for the SRS, I ignored these steps. Not sure what the risk is, but nothing bad happened in my case. |
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Post by sempar on Feb 7, 2015 18:08:27 GMT -6
gdouaire,
Thanks for the reply. Was hoping to tackle it this weekend but the weather is lousy. Hopefully tomorrow or next weekend. Should be a good warmup for replacing the dash bulbs!
John
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