Quote:
Originally Posted by Babushka  jbiZzyC43 - Just an idea - LEDs are known to not like the heat, if it keeps happenning to you, and you did everything no clue suggested, check if your LEDs are getting hot from the ressitor being too close or from other source.
no clue - Great thread!!! I know too many people including myself that talked about this but never did it.
I attempted this, but in my case I wanted to remove the front side marker bulb, and to avoid the error message, wanted to replace it with a resistor. I wanted to replace the exact load, so by using an electrical meter, I measured the resistance that bulb was putting out and bought an slighly larger resistor. When I tried it, hahahahahaha, that resistor caught on an open flame fire.
My resistance reading measured to be 5 Ohms. Where did I go wrong? Can you help with the correct resistor? |
Since everyone else is resurrecting old threads lately I just thought I would explain this issue for others who are baffled by this.
OHMS is a measure of resistance. WATTS is one way to measure an electrical load. These are separate things, but they can overlap. For example, there are lots of 100 ohm resistors out there measured in small fractions of a watt to several watts intended for different loads. In other words, you don't just buy a 10 ohm resistor. That is only one half of the equation, you also have to buy the resistor that is rated for the electrical load (and remember that the resistance of a load results in heat). If you plug in a 5 ohm resistor that has too low of a load rating, it will quickly overheat and fail. Each circuit has a given load on it and if your resistor does not meet or exceed that load, you will have problems. (Kudos to Babushka for trying this in the open instead of putting it back together and damaging something.)
If it helps, think of a plastic grocery sack. Each one has a certain volume or capacity, think of this as "ohms". However, the things you put in it (the analogous LOAD) may
weigh differently. You can stuff the bag full of cotton balls and paper towels and it's fine. But it won't take many canned goods and glass jars to overload the bag; at first it stretches (the heat), and then it fails (burns up).
Now, exactly what wattage to use in a specific instance is part of what electrical engineers get paid for and is beyond the pale of this basic explanation (a gross oversimplification is that it involves determining the load on the entire circuit, then calculating the load for this specific bulb and factoring in a safety/reliability margin for dispersing heat). When in doubt, however, too many watts is better than too few. Start googling and you'll find a wealth of information out there. And remember that all bulbs are rated for watts as well, but not all of them disclose this specification. If you find that spec for a particular bulb, and you measure the resistance, you then have both halves of the equation and are good to go.
Now, while this is sort of a different mod, you can buy a pair of long-life license plate bulbs for a few bucks, pop them in and you're good for several years (my original ones are coming up on 8 years, and they are not even long life rated). So if your only thought is longevity you can go on ebay and buy the LED units for multiples of the price, plus the cost of the resistors, plus the work to solder/crimp them in. For my time and effort you can replace the bulbs a few times before you reach the time and expense of the mod. If you want
the look, however, it is doable, and as I always say, one of the nice things about car ownership is deciding what you want to do to it.
Take care and enjoy the ride,
Greg
We are indeed lucky to have you here. 
I wont say that I completely realized just how much was involved in this mod (ohms / resistance etc.) ~ I just figured (wrong as it may be) that since No Clue (and since many others) did it and it worked w/ no problems that I would at least try it out. I've done other mods (HID fogs) on the basis that I know others have done them w/ no problems but its good to have the knowledge of what can go wrong too. 
Linear Mode
