LED's flashing???? Help

[dannyb420]

I installed LED's from www.superbrightleds.com throughout my interior, my puddle lights, and my license plate lights. One by one my interior festoon bulbs will just start flashing, almost like a strobe light. It is the most annoying thing in the world. Does anyone know why this is happening? The other bulbs are fine.

Thanks

 

[justin146]

When LEDs go bad, they often begin to flash. Some of the puddle lights I built for people started to flash- I blame it on cheap Chinese parts.

 

[Jason94sport]

I've had it happen as well with my dome lights from them. A new led bulb fixed it. I have a bunch of extra bulbs. I have called them to complain about it & they said sometimes their manufacture of the bulbs messes up. They offered a free replacement if I had the receipt. Which I did.

 

[IAmTodd]

Yea, my puddles did that. Replaced the bulbs and everything was fine.

 

[manaen]

since the whole LED craze the market has been flooded with very cheap white LED's. and if you don't know the history of LED's white was a very hard (and expensive) color to make in an LED, these cheap units tend to dim and burn out quickly.

 

[dannyb420]

This is the response I got from them, I am not sure if I still have the receipt though

"We are unable to determine why these bulbs are failing so quickly without testing. Resistors are built into the bulb."

"If you would like to return the bulbs to our 100 Washington st address, attn. returns, we will be happy to replace the bulbs."

"Please include a copy of your invoice with instructions for replacement."

"Sorry for your inconvenience."

Thank You,
Sondra
Super Bright LEDs

 

[justin146]

Another thing to take into consideration- when you add resistors to your LEDs, you have to make sure your formula is for about 14V. If you design the circuit to run at 12v, you will over power the LED making it fail more quickly. On my larger LED projects, I acutally use a voltage regulator instead of resistors. This way you will never have an over voltage condition at the LED; and because you dont have all of those resistors making heat, your circuit will use much less current.

 

[Dan Whitaker]

I'm glad I saw this. I was going to buy some clear LED's to go in the Altezza's I just got today.

The ones I saw were at AutoZone and are $16 for a pair. I don't remember the brand but I have a feeling they are junk after reading this thread.

 

[manaen]

Another thing to take into consideration- when you add resistors to your LEDs, you have to make sure your formula is for about 14V. If you design the circuit to run at 12v, you will over power the LED making it fail more quickly. On my larger LED projects, I acutally use a voltage regulator instead of resistors. This way you will never have an over voltage condition at the LED; and because you dont have all of those resistors making heat, your circuit will use much less current.

you know that is a great point, and for the cost of a voltage regulator, im not sure why they don't use those instead, thay may have saved 50 cents on parts, but it is costing them hundreds on the returns.

 

[dannyb420]

The wedge bulbs I use work great, they are bright and I have had those in for a while now with no issues, the festoon style however have been failing. People comment on me adding strobes in time for Halloween.

 

[muzzymaniac]

Is this the type if regulator needed?

http://cgi.ebay.com/Voltage-Regulat...=item120148819874&_trksid=p3285.c14.m20.l1116

 

[justin146]

Is this the type if regulator needed?

http://cgi.ebay.com/Voltage-Regulat...=item120148819874&_trksid=p3285.c14.m20.l1116

That is a 12v regulator, what you'll need is a 2.5v (or whatever the forward voltage of your LED is) regulator. Or you could use a 12V regulator along with resistors just to make sure there is not an over voltage condition. If you do that, you will want one that can handle more current than that one.