Replacing oem bulbs with LED

[MestupS2K]

I decided to swap all incandescent bulbs for LEDs. (AP1) I have sucessfully done so with all bulbs except for the rear turn signal bulbs. Has anyone tried to use LEDs in that position? Unfortunately honda decided to use an akward bulb, 7507 for those bulbs and are very hard to find in LED form. The bulbs I have now, I hardwired them to the battery and they both work fine but in the sockets, no luck. However the oem bulbs work just fine?!?!?! I'm lost on this one. Any help fellow owners???

Thanks, Sean

[repiv]

Turn signal bulbs go through the flasher, which needs to sense voltage and impedence. LEDs don't have enough resistance and makes the flasher think the bulb is burnt out. In order to make these work, you must find the correct resister and wire one in line with each LED bulb used in this circuit. What size resister, I can't help you with. Maybe someone with more electrical knowledge can help. Or you could measure the resistance of the standard bulb and compare that to the LED bulb. That should tell you how much more resistance you need.

[Charla]

MestupS2K

I have been reading through the various topics here while I research buying an S2000. I expect you have resolved this issue by now, but in case you have not here are some options.

I work with LEDs on a number of non-automotive projects, but often buy the automotive type packaged LED arrays because they are well made and they save time putting them together myself.

I think you have two solutions:

1. Add a resistor across each LED assembly to put enough load on the flasher unit to allow it to function properly. If you figure maybe 2 amps with the OEM lamps, 6 to 10 ohms at 50 watt resistors should do it with plenty of margin. The 50 watt resistors are a little over kill, but will be easer to mount than smaller wattage ones and will dissipate the heat better -- a smaller hotter resister could do damage to your wiring or whatever depending on how you hack them in. They will cost around $5 each and installation could be messy.
2. Replace the flasher. I like this better since it is a plugin unit and no hacking is required.

I don't have access to the S2000 schematics, but I see on one of the sites I have used for LEDs a flasher (CF13GL-02) for less than $15 that looks promising. This unit even has a clicker that many electronic flashers do not. Of course you should check the pin-out of your S2000 unit to make sure this one matches before buying and plugging it in. They do offer several other flasher units with pin-out drawings, so maybe one of them will work if this one will not.

Here is a page with resistors and flasher units.

http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-bin/store/commerce.cgi?product=CAR&keywords=&cart_id=9953763.2397&next=50

Here is a page with the various flasher unit drawings:

http://www.superbrightleds.com/flashers.htm

Charla

[MestupS2K]

Thanks for the comments everyone! I still don't have the problem fixed yet, currently i'm in the process of trying a different type of led bulb. I have installed resistors/equalizers and that didn't help that problem but it did return the flash rate to normal. Before the resistor i/s they blinked about 3x as fast as normal. Hopefully these new bulbs will fix the problem. It's just ironic that all the flash bulbs work except for the back ones. Fronts and side markers work fine but who knows what the hecks whats goin on with the stupid back ones.

[Charla]

Oops -- I misread your original post and assumed your LEDs were on all the time or flashing too fast. After rereading it seems you are saying the LEDs you have do not come on at all when installed in the sockets, but come on fine if connected to the battery. Also it seems adding resistors did fix the flash rate for the other LED devices you have installed, so you have the Honda flasher happy at least.

Before I move on if your LEDS are never coming on I have one last comment. LEDs are by their name diodes and are polarized devices. They only function if voltage is applied to them with the correct polarity, if the polarity is reversed the diode will block currect flow. I expect the LEDs you have are mounted in the reversed polarity from what you need for the Honda socket. If these were sold as automotive LEDs this seems strange, but if they were for internal home lighting or some other application it could be the problem.

Good luck with the new ones.

Charla

[MestupS2K]

the reversed polarity problem crossed my mind as well, and honestly I can't find out whether thats the actual problem or not, due to the sockets for mine are a 1-way fit. There is no way for me to "turn them around".