Converting to LED's in a 6 Volt System

[LoneWolf8]

My 56' Beetle's turn signals and brake lights have always seemed very dim to me. I decided to change out my old 1156 and 1157 incandescent bulbs with LED's for the increase in visibility. I bought a couple of amber 1156 LED's for the front, and red 1157's for the rear. The new LED's are bayonet style just like the old ones, so there was no hassle in pulling out the old ones, and putting in the new LED's. However, upon replacing the bulbs, I found the turn signals did not work. After reading a few forums here at The Samba and talking to a few friends, I learned that the old mechanical flasher relay will not work with LED's because of the lack of resistance incandescents produce to allow the old relay to operate. I had a few options available to me to fix this problem. One was to buy new LED's that have a resistor built in, buy resistors to put inline to the lights, or I could purchase an electronic relay to replace the old one. I decided on buying the electronic relay because one of the benefits of LED's is the reduced power consumption, and putting in resistors would defeat that benefit. I purchased an electronic relay from a supplier on Ebay that would work on both 6 and 12 Volts. The replacement was easy enough, just unscrew the old relay bracket and screw the new relay in it's place, and attach the leads to the new relay. Problem Solved? Not so fast!
I was extremely disappointed to find that the LED's were bearly visible when the turn signals were on. As is common with VW's, I went around and cleaned the grounds on all the fixtures thinking it must be a grounding problem. Didn't work, the lights were still bearly visible. I took out my multi-meter and read the voltage on every connection from the power input in the relay, all the way to the bulbs, and got a good reading.
I even took apart the entire turn signal switch and cleaned all the connections inside thinking there might be a voltage drop in the switch. No luck. Discouraged, I replaced the LED's with the old incandescents, and called it good. I did leave the electronic relay in place, and it works fine.
Three months go by, and today I decided to try again. After installing the LED's, and seeing I still had the same problem, I pulled out my old trusty test light and proceded to test all the connections. When I got to the front turn signals, I attached the lead to the test light to the bumper, and touched the power lead to the fixture, and the turn signal light flashed brighter then I've ever seen on a 6 Volt system! Wait a minute! It's an electronic flasher! Since when does an electronic flasher need resistance?
I took my test light and attached the lead to the output of the relay to the turn signal switch and grounded the point to the body, and my turn signals are beautiful! I've never seen them so bright!
I pulled my test light and read the ohms between the lead and the point, and got 5 ohms. I cut the output leads terminal off and added a 5 ohm resistor from the new terminal to the mounting screw of the relay. Behold! I have the nicest, brightest turn signals I've ever seen on a 6 Volt Bug!

So, I guess my questions would be, why would an electronic flasher need the resistance? Is the 5 Ohm resistor going to make a big difference on power consumption?

I also figured out how to get my turn signal indicator working in my speedometer, but I'll leave that for another post.

[Foxx]

http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-bin/store/index...4Aodi2aT0g

they make 6v LED bulbs too.
make sure you get a 6volt electronic flasher or they will not flash.

search Google for 6volt LED bulbs for a dealer of your choice.
http://www.google.com/search?q=6volt+led+bulbs&...=firefox-a
_________________
Frank
OG JHC
59 panel




Sarcasm is the body's natural defense against stupidity. i seem to use a lot.

[crofty]

While I applaud your efforts if you want bright lightsthan why not convert to 12v and run led's?
_________________
Your Vanagon sucks, Stop waving at me.

[dw_crash]

Dear Foxx,

You posted that ;

http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-bin/store/index...4Aodi2aT0g

was a 6V flasher that works with 6v LED 1156 and 1157 bulbs.

I tried that HTTP listing and it doesn't work. It is not complete cause of the .... in it. Do you recall the part SuperBrightLEDS had for this flasher? I tried searching the site and all I find is 12 v flashers.

thanks,
DW_Crash

[modok]

LED are very sensitive to voltage, and do not draw a high start up voltage like a bulb that helps to keep a good connection through contacts.
Any marginal connection will make the thing too dim. I figured that the vibration of going down the road would keep good contact but it didn't, i ended up switching the old VW bulb holders for ones off a crown vic that work much better.

IMO the LED should be regulated by current limiter circuit rather than
bias resistance, probably the aftermarket will figure this out, I hope.

What you are seeing may be that the electronic flasher has some kind of nonlinear current to voltage behavior. Evidently it has transistors instead of contacts? yes that does defeat the purpose...........but resistors are more reliable than bulbs.

[dw_crash]

[modok]

None.......or.......well I really don't know. I just put in one that had a nice clicky sound to it. No idea what car it's from. I have bulbs in front so it works.

Some of the ones for trucks and general purpose do flash the same speed no matter how many bulbs are connected, but at the same time I don't think those would be best either.

LEDs are great for both flashlights and auto bulbs, but I'm astounded at how long it is taking for the world to figure out how to make them work right.

The problem with both is switches and contacts made for bulbs foul up with leds...........not enough current to keep the contacts clean. As long as you have old style connectors and switches then you need some current. That is why I have 40 ohms load across my ignition points even though the points only act as a trigger for my electronic ignition. It's not a new idea, I just copied MSD who copied delta who copied.........ect ect

Once read a paper about switch design and the info is out there..........just very obscure outside of people who design switches

I like moving parts and current, so it doesen't bother me. in the future your blinker switch will be connected to to a machanism that gives the feel of an ancient switch, but the actual switch will be a tiny thing with tiny wires on a circuit board that is only able to be constructed in a factory by machines.......well.......it's already like that, IMO the world is horrible.
But LEDs are cool

[dw_crash]