MainePorsche

Been thinking of it for a while and decided to install. Install is a piece of cake. The module is no bigger than the old little boxes of pocket matches. I drilled two holes on the fore face of the 3rd brake light housing. One hole for the wires to go through. The second hole is so the pattern adjusting dial/stalk has a place to go. I then velcroed the module there. The module is black plastic, and very inconspicuous. No wires visible as they (and the dial) are perpendicular to the large face of the rectangle and are hidden under it once velcroed. Initially I was thinking I would have to disable the Lamp Control for the brake lights. Not necessary with this unit. There is a slight oddity that I think I can live with. When applying the brakes the central warning for 'Stoplight' will flash for one less time than I have the flasher set for, then will go off. Makes sense, for it is sensing a bulb fault each time the module switches the bulb. I set it for four flashes, then remain sustained. It then goes back to normal with no sustained warning to be reset. I also placed a pre-measured piece of aluminum foil in the black bulb housing. I used a thin smudge of gasket sealer as the adhesive. Resulted in a very noticeable difference in the lens' brightness.

http://www.customled.com/products/br...FUtgMgod7HoAGA

Alan

Wow - if mine did that it would really **** me off.

Convert to an LED bulb and place a ballast resistor in parallel with the whole thing - should stop the warnings

Thats how mine is configured - no warnings...

Alan

MainePorsche

Alan,
Would a ballast resistor be found at a place like Radioshack ?
Is there a particular resistance I would look for ?

It's good to know I can stop the flashing x 3 warning and still maintain Lamp Control. Yes it was slightly irksome, but I was happy to know that Lamp Control still functioned, so I opted not to disable it. I do really want to keep Lamp Control functional.

Alan

Not sure - but you'd want something like this:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/5-new-RCD-61...item1e59b45202

~ 7 ohms 25 W metal type power resistor that can be mounted to the inside roof skin.

You will need to use an LED bulb instead of incandescent. You must mount the power resistor to a metal dissipator (as shown) It will get very hot - so the sunroof area is good - directly adjacent and lots of open area and a good dissipator panel (careful drilling though!! - use a depth limiter) do use thermal paste to mount it

Alan

MainePorsche

Alan,
It would have to go there by virtue of its size.
Again, thanks very much.
Craig

MainePorsche

Oh, and Alan, it would go in parallel before the module ?

davek9

correction: Thanks Alan
It would need to go from the positive connection to ground.
I tried it inside the "B" piller, using a connection off the Ribbon cable, it gets over 200 deg !! So I opted not to use them and just jumped out the Lamp Controler.

MainePorsche

?.

Alan

No! it goes in parallel across the brake circuit to provide the equivalent of the original incandescent load - then the flasher and LED create just a very small variation in the load in parallel with it.

The LED bulb will already have its own series current limiting resistor integrated (standard LED's don't have series resistors but LED bulbs designed for direct retrofit do).

Alan

MainePorsche

So is it really like a capacitator that stores, then provides current when needed such as when the flasher module switches the bulb ?

Alan

No. it acts like the load of the normal incandescent bulb. Most LED's take only a small % of the incandescent current so the variation of the flasher on top of that main load is not enough to set off the warning.

My flasher also has another bypass resistor (bypassing the flasher) for the LED only so it doesn't completely switch off when its flashing it pulses up & down quite noticeably but when the brakes are on it is always at least partially illuminated. I prefer this mode. It is also set to flash only 3 times and will not flash again while the brakes are applied and after operating it won't work again until a small delay has passed (approx 15-20 seconds) avoids excessive operation in stop & go traffic.

It has been installed and operating well for the last ~6-7 years

Alan

MainePorsche

Interesting set up you have.
When brakes applied, mine flashes 4 times then is sustained on while brake still applied. Will only resume cycle if brake released, then re-applied.
Thanks again. I'll see this through to normal, even though I'm losing some 'purism'.

MainePorsche

After reflecting on the 'fix' to not have my 'Stoplight' warning light flash 3 times, then turn off every time I hit the brakes, I opted NOT to install an LED with a ballast resistor in parallel for this. I did not want any wiring or components getting very hot inside the vehicle. Though I did want to maintain Lamp Control functionality, I opted to disable it in order to have trouble free, and simple, flash function of the 3rd Brake Light. I thought having the utility of such a function outweighed the disabling of the Lamp Control warning of a bulb out. As I am used to taking a quick stroll around the vehicle to quickly inspect all illumination, for I have disabled Tail Light Lamp Control because of LED installation, a quick check of Brake Light function won't hurt that much.
Thanks again Alan for your input in this case.
Craig