LED's Help

[Chips]

Left hand light cluster on my Ifor trailers had rotted out as damp got in , so went to get a replacement from local stores and saw an LED one for only £9.99 and thought ideal as it's sealed they wont get wet again which always seems to happen with the halogen ones . Anyway after wiring it up I have two problems , there is no side light , but that is due to no power coming to it and neither to the side markers on the trailer thus a separate issue . But the other problem is the indicator , it works fine when indicating ,working at correct brightness and speed of flash , but then when you stop indicating it keeps on flashing but duller and also much quicker , it even keeps doing this if indicating in the opposite direction and also when vehicle is switched off , in fact the only way to stop it is to unplug the trailer from the vehicle ! It all worked fine before and it's baffling me how it can get a flashing signal from the truck even when it's switched off and at a different speed , if you indicate right (the led is the left one) the right one goes at the right speed while the left one goes at a faster rate .
Any ideas what's going on or should I just go back and buy a standard halogen unit and put up with replacing it every few years

 

[quattro]

Bad earth !!

 

[agrimax]

Have you tried plugging it into a different vehicle? What are you towing with anyway? AFAIK more modern vehicles have the towing socket linked the ECU.It also wouldn't be common practise to have a led unit in connection with a standard bulb type.(not halogen BTW).

 

[Lincs Lass]

Have you just replaced one unit from bulb to LED or the pair ,,Led and halogen have different resistance ,,if you changed both it should sort it .
Ive changed mine and they are fine

 

[Mursal]

As mentioned a bad earth
White (earth) return wire not connected to the towing vehicle properly. Or the white on that light is not connected to the loom properly. This will cause the above problems, not sure about the side light issue
Click for trailer wiring stuff
Also you could try U-Tube for trailer wiring problem solving videos ...........

 

[Lincs Lass]

I found on the LED units Ive used is they are not wired the same as the wiring loom ,so where you use yellow for left indicator ,,on the back of the led unit its green ,,this is then ok for the right side as its the correct colour ,white is still earth and red is still brakes ,side lights will be either brown or black

 

[Mark7810s]

You got a disco 3/4 they put two volts down the indicator line all the time for some reason something to do wit checking the circuit. I fitted ballast resistors on my trailer and it's been fine since.

 

[Mursal]

Well I thought there must be resistors fitted (in the new lights) as the flash rate was fine when indicating, but could be wrong .............

 

[Lincs Lass]

think its newer vehicles that need resistors fitting ,,something to do with the ecu and all the other phantasmagorical computerised systems,,my old bus didnt need anything

 

[Chips]

You got a disco 3/4 they put two volts down the indicator line all the time for some reason something to do wit checking the circuit. I fitted ballast resistors on my trailer and it's been fine since.

Yes Disco 3 , this makes sense then , what sort of resistor do I need , doubt the farm supply store has them .

 

[Mursal]

Click for resistors to steady the flash rate when you turn the indicator on
They will not cure a bad earth connection ..............
Sorry wrong kit you only need two

 

[Chips]

Click for resistors to steady the flash rate when you turn the indicator on
They will not cure a bad earth connection ..............
Sorry wrong kit you only need two

Just to be clear , the flash rate is fine when indicator is turned on as is the brightness and so I don't think bad earth is a problem . What Mark 7810 replied seems to make a lot more sense as it only flashes quickly and dimly when not indicating even if vechicle is switched off , so just need a resistor to stop the 2 volt test signal which I guess is causing the issue .
I'm thinking the lack of side light will be a blown fuse as the side marker is out too . I will check it on an old tractor tomorrow to find out if it's indeed the disco to blame . Thanks for the help anyway

 

[Badshot]

I bet the indicator repeater light/horn isn't working. The resistor will sort that though.

 

[Chips]

Spent all morning trying to locate the correct resistor , I local car parts shop but they were unsure as to what size so I thought I would ring Landrover in Shrewsbury as they must come across this problem all the time , Firstly they don't let the customer speak with anyone in the workshop and so they had to go away and phone me back , an hour later their answer was simply that discovery 3's are not compatible with LED trailer lights ! Anyway off to fetch some resistors from Salop Towing , they could also fit something in the car itself to allow it to use any led trailer without resistors but at £150 it's a bit over kill for now

 

[Mursal]

If you want to connect a 21 watt bulb across the led it will test it for you.
I should have mentioned that yesterday ...............
Love a main dealer, they turn the simplest thing into an nightmare

 

[UTV Products]

Something like these are more than ample for fixing the indicators on various trailers when run behind modern canbus vehicles. We regularly use them with Disco 3s. heres a quick random link from eBay to get you started. Other suppliers are available. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BA15S-382...235294?hash=item35d4124ade:g:4M8AAMXQydtTNWGl

 

[Chips]

Something like these are more than ample for fixing the indicators on various trailers when run behind modern canbus vehicles. We regularly use them with Disco 3s. heres a quick random link from eBay to get you started. Other suppliers are available. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BA15S-382...235294?hash=item35d4124ade:g:4M8AAMXQydtTNWGl

Those are the ones I fetched from salop towing today , they told me to wire them from the yellow positive across to the white negative , so soldered them on and not a blind bit of difference other than the resistors warmed a little but indicator still blinking all the time , so phoned them up and they said they couldn't understand it and maybe connect it inline on the positive instead ,which I did and again no difference , indicates fine but as soon as you stop it blinks faster and dimmer , so after two days of wasted time and probably 60 miles of driving I gave up and went and got an old style one . Annoying as no doubt it will rot out again in a few years although I did seal it up with silicon , but I can't waste anymore time on what should have been a ten minute job . My baler has a broken light so maybe that will get blinged up with the spare LED !

 

[Badshot]

Those are the ones I fetched from salop towing today , they told me to wire them from the yellow positive across to the white negative , so soldered them on and not a blind bit of difference other than the resistors warmed a little but indicator still blinking all the time , so phoned them up and they said they couldn't understand it and maybe connect it inline on the positive instead ,which I did and again no difference , indicates fine but as soon as you stop it blinks faster and dimmer , so after two days of wasted time and probably 60 miles of driving I gave up and went and got an old style one . Annoying as no doubt it will rot out again in a few years although I did seal it up with silicon , but I can't waste anymore time on what should have been a ten minute job . My baler has a broken light so maybe that will get blinged up with the spare LED !

They were right in wiring it across the positive and negative, but it will stop fast flash, not sure it'd sort your problem out.

 

[Mursal]

Did the old style work as expected?

 

[Chips]

Did the old style work as expected?

Yes works fine now with old style unit fitted . It also worked fine with the led unit on it if I put an old mccormick on it ,i.e no fancy computer , just with the disco it had the problem