LED issues with honda Insight...

[Blake]

Ok, so my LED's came in the mail today. Was excited to get one side installed to test their brightness compared to normal light bulbs. Got one side installed and turned on my parking lights.

Hmmm, no lights. Took all the LED's out and put the regular bulbs in. No lights still. Weird.

Checked fuses. Yep, burned out fuse. Replaced it and it instantly blew as soon as I turn them on. Very strange. Replaced it with a 20 amp fuse.. blew that one too.

The turns signals work (albet they are flashing rapidly which was expected, have to get a new flasher unit that works with the low current draw of LEDs)

Pressing the brake pedal and the brake lights light up. Put the car in reverse and the LED's light up.

Going to have to wait till tomorrow to go to the store to buy some fuses and a new flasher. I'll buy plenty of fuses and reinstall the normal bulbs to see if that fixes it. If so, then I'll start swapping the bulbs in one at a time to see which one is the issue.

[hobbit]

Sounds like you caught something in a lamp socket that shorted
it. I'd pull all the lamps and recheck step by step. Make
sure no parts of the harnesses leading up to them are mangled
and touching the car body, either..
.
_H*

[Blake]

Alrighty, went to the garage to put all the original bulbs back in and thats when I found another 10 amp fuse....

Swapped them all in one at a time skipping the brake lamp (since I suspect thats the one thats causing the issues)

Tada! they all work. I'm impressed with how bright some of them are. The license plate LED is actually brighter than the original bulb. The front marker lamp (the tiny round light in the headlamp assembly) is very nice looking.

Now the LED store did say to not put LED's in an assembly with a headlamp because the heat will cause the LED's to fail and void the warranty. Ehhh, I'll do it anyway and see how long they last

The Turn signal light is a tiny bit less bright, but much clearer.

The backup light is a different color white... Not sure how it will fare at night when backing up. I suspect that it will be easier to see with the whiter light, but it is dimmer... Not a ton though.

The interior lights look great. One odd thing though... and this could be caused by the high idle since the car was cold. It looks light there is a slight pulsation, sort of like its varying the amount of light output ever so slightly. I have eyes like a hawk though and most people would probably not notice it.


I'm going to go back to advanced auto tomorrow to get a stash of fuses to try and figure out what's causing the brake light LED's to pop fuses. I'm betting its either they have to be installed a certain way (in fact, every single one I put in I had to switch around.. You would have thought that installing 8 LED's I would have gotten at least one right! heh).

I need to get a new flasher unit as well. This is going to sound sad, but anyone have an idea of where the flasher is on the insight? I know it has to be on the interior fuse block, but I've never had to replace a flasher so I'm not sure what it looks like. It has to be a black square right? there's a couple down there.. One looks like a cube almost and then there's three rectangles. Is the cube looking one it?

[msirach]

Where did you get the LED's?

[Blake]

www.superbrightLEDS.com

This is a list of the bulbs I got for my Insight.

WLED-WHP Pure White High Power * 5 (2 - Front marker lights, 2 - Front Parking Light & 1 - License plate light) $4.95 each * 5 = $24.75
7440-xHP3 Amber * 4 (Front and rear turn signals) $12.95 each * 4 = $51.80
7443-xHP3 Red * 2 (Brake lights) $12.95 each * 2 = $25.90
921-x12 Wedge White (Backup lights) $5.95 each * 2 = $11.90
WLED 5-LED Wide Angle Cool White * 3 (Interior light and Map lights) $3.94 each * 3 = $11.82
LED Flasher CF13JL-02 = $12.95
$10.00 for shipping

$149.12 total. Definitely not cheap but I'll never have to replace a bulb again (hopefully)

I won't recoup the cost back, and if I did it would most likely be many years before that happend. I did it because I felt like it Thats good enough of a reason for me. You could probably just skip the turn signals since they are hardly ever on and cut the cost almost in half. I got the most powerful bulbs for each exterior slot and ones that had the widest degree of output for the inside. Looking back on it, if you wanted a more natural looking light for the map lights, you should go with the WLED 5-LED Wide Angle WARM instead of Cool white. If I had to do it again, I'd get those instead.


The only one I didn't get a replacement for was the rear hatch light as its a festoon bulb and I didn't see one that would fit.


I still need to see if the brake lights will work but I won't know until tomorrow so I can have some spare fuses incase I pop one again.


Also, If you replace your turn signals, you'll need a new flasher. I'm not sure what kind I need yet, but I'll let you know tomorrow when I figure it all out. I'll post some pictures of a comparison on the brightness as well.



EDIT: Opps, I actually missed two bulbs, there are two parking lamps that I didn't get. Added them to the list along with the needed flasher for an almost complete list. Still missing festoon bulb in the back

[Daox]

I don't suppose you have any before and after pictures? I like pictures.

[Blake]

Not yet. I just solved the fuse issue and I have to run out to get fuses before I put the brake lights in. I've only got one side installed atm just for that very reason. I like pictures too

I'll have pictures up by noon at the latest tomorrow

[shifty35]

Originally Posted by caryfd227

The interior lights look great. One odd thing though... and this could be caused by the high idle since the car was cold. It looks light there is a slight pulsation, sort of like its varying the amount of light output ever so slightly. I have eyes like a hawk though and most people would probably not notice it.

Heh, this is fairly easily explained. Chances are, at idle, the DC-DC converter is not going to be continuously on, but probably engaged whenever the battery drops below some point. Hopefully there is some hystersis built in so that it doesn't cycle on / off too frequently.

Then you have the LED bulb construction. An LED has a fixed voltage drop across each diode, call it 5 volts - probably less, but it may be this high for a large white diode. However, once forward biased, an LED has very low resistance. Generally, a resistor is used to control the current through the diode. The intensity of the light emitted is related to the current flowing through the diode - each diode generally has a "nominal" current rating. The bulb designer may have selected a resistance to run at this nominal current, or slightly less for better life with decreased output.

Call the nominal current 200 mA.

Quick maths:

V = IR => R = V / I

Nominal resistance = (12v - 5v) / 200 mA = 35 ohms

Now say the DC/DC comes on and the voltage jumps to 14v.

I = V / R = (14v - 5v) / 35 ohms = 257 mA

% diff = (257-200)/200 = 22% current increase.

That would result in a clear fluctuation in brightness.

Probably any electrical accessory that causes a large draw of current would cause a similar voltage swing when rapidly turned on / off. It's just much more pronounced with LEDs because they can turn on and off rapidly - they have no incandescent "inertia" like normal bulbs do.

[Blake]

Thanks for the math! I love stuff like that. The light output fluctuation I'm seeing is extremely tiny, barely noticeable.

The current draw for this particular LED is 26mA at 12 volts with an operating range of 9-14.8 volts, so I'm sure its just varying light output like you said with the rapidly changing voltage because of the high idle. I'll see if it changes tomorrow after I have the car up to operating temp and I haven't drained down the 12 volt battery from trying to figure out what's going on with fuses

[highwater]

Hi Blake,
You will have fun getting the factory flasher unit out of the under dash fuse block. The one on my Insight was white (and a bit on the contrary side). It is at the upper top of the fuse block. I got the recommended led flasher from superbrightleds.com and had to modify it before it would fit. It is slighty bigger than the spot it needs to fit in. I removed the cover from the led replacement unit, and cut the edges of the circuit board down, using the factory flasher as a guide. Once it was small enough to fit into the fuse block, I wrapped the exposed components with electrical tape, and plugged it in.

Your list of bulbs looks to match what I installed from the same supplier, with the exception of my red interior map lights. I also got the led festoon bulbs for the rear cargo area, although I never seem to use that light.

It seems to me that the Insight loves the led marker/HID headlight combination. I have seen a very noticable reduction in power consumption. One leg of my commute is headlights on.

I have had no problem with the leds being installed in the headlight housings. I'm sure that is a standard disclaimer, on the part of the supplier. In some headlight housings there could be a problem, if the bulbs are closer to the headlamps. On the Insight there is quite a bit of thermal distance between the markers, and the headlamps.

Sounds like your having lots of fun.
If you need some pics of that flasher set-up, drop me a PM.

Randall