Technical LED's, What am I missing?

I bought this '26 Modified that was built about 10 years ago and just sat in a garage. The taillight was changed to LED'S and it flickers but the wiring and connectors check out OK.
I think I maybe missing a part to that system? (A decoder? Whatever that is!)

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we can't see much, about how it's wired up, what type of LED setup it has, etc.

I doubt you need a decoder, but you might could use a good old fashioned light bulb.

 

I can open it up and take pictures later. It was converted from a truck LED light 10 or 12 years ago, not a great setup, only has 5 LED's.
I may canabulize a '33-'36 Speedway 19 LED lamp and stuff in there!



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Even with LED bulbs original dark glass hard to see. Might look for otber options


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if it flickers it's a bad connection /ground some place

 

...or a crappy quality LED assembly.

 

I would check all the connections , ground also.
When changing to LED turn signals, you need a special flasher meant for LEDs or combo LED / regular bulbs.
I know this doesn't have turn signals, just figured I'd throw that in for anyone that does

 

I agree with squirrel on this one , Leds were hit and miss if they were asian ( china) several years back and even the commercial lights that used them we would get flickers or blinking when they were not supposed too , and often it was a sign of the led taking a crap , you could take the easy way out now and find a big truck supply shop and look at the grote or truck lite capsule lights ( there leds) and adapt one of them over ( or cut and gut ) as they are high power and made to last longer , or contact www.superbrightleds.com and talk to there tech and have him set you up with what you need , or go back to a old style bulb holder but a halogen bulb for brightness ,
remember the rules of Leds , if you use a red lens you have to use a red led , yellow lens , yellow as the lens is actually a light filter and a white Led light output has less red in it (its more color pure ) and it will be dimmer than using the red .

 

forgot say one other thing , on some trucks that are now built for LEds they had to change the switching and use a gold or silver contact on the relay contactor plus a internal resistor as Leds draw so little energy that a small ammount of corrosion would effect the lighting with the copper points and the lights would do weird things ( this is one thing to remember if you own a newer O/t and have to replace a lighting relay buy the good one for 7.99 vs the 2.99 ) , but if you ran several 194 light bulbs in the circuit the extra amps draw would fix it , kind of like adding a resistor in line on a points operated transistorized ignition using old points vs a new set .

 

The majority of LED light assemblies are wired in series; sort of like the old Christmas tree lights where if one lamp burned out, the whole string would quit. Now, how many individual LEDs are in series in an aftermarket assembly can vary; typically it's between 3 and 6 lamps. So if you have one LED (in an array of six) going bad, they'll all act 'funny'. If the lamp assembly has more than one array, you may lose only part of the light.

 

the flickering thing....my guess is that it has a built in switching power supply. In the old days, we'd use a current limiting resistor. Which still works, if you want to make it reliable.

(I recently bought a cheap LED spotlight, it contains a limitng resistor, no power supply)

 

X2 on the superbright recommendation

 

I like your car ,maybe do some more pics and info someday?

 

Not a big fan of LEDs always seems to be some issue with them and for me personally they have no place on a hot rod purely for the reason that the stark emitted light does not suit a hot rod
Just my opinion

 

All this led bashing. Just pull a regular bulb from a known working taillight set for testing. That is if units still have the socket.
If the brake light work but not flashers, check the flasher can.

If you don't have the socket then you have to find the original or Repop of that housing and start over again. Or just fit a brake light socket in there and ground it.

There was company now that made plug and play taillight leds that didn't need a special flasher change over.

Btw I love that little modified. It been around nearly 10-15 years looking like that. Please keep it going.

 

The car was built about 10 to 12 years ago, only has 400 miles on it! I'm doing the sorting out now!

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(Sorry they are sideways!)

 

Yeah throw that garbage away and mount a proper socket in there.

 

That must have been trailered a lot. I seen it at the Pomona Roadster show a few times really early on. But 400 miles? Man it must live in a nice garage and not see light very often.

 

Not any more!

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I mounted LED clearance lights off big truck for turn signals and no issues. Mounted them in kitchen light housings.

 

Take the circuit board assembly off the holder and take pics of the back of the circuit board for us to analyze the circuit configuration.

 

Found the problem and repaired it!
There was a broken stand-off on the LED mounting /cooling plate that makes an electrical connection.
I soldiered that and gave the plate support with 3 globs of silicone which will reduce vibration. (I think that's why it broke.)
Anyway, it's fixed, much brighter than a lamp bulb and more durable than a Halogen bulb.
(I never had much luck with those. )
Thanks everyone!!

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No resister will caused flickering.

 

Found a broken internal connection!
(See #22 above!)
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Glad you got it worked out. I see it a lot of LED's flickering because no resister is being used or the wrong resister being used.

 

If you look at the pictures of the internals of my light you see the LED's mounted on a large metal plate that I think acts as a heat sink. That plate is mounted on a curcuit board by 2 small stand-off's. I think vibration broke the upper stand-off.
I siliconed the plate in 3 places to the housing so it won't vibrate.

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You might think of changing the unit for a newer one anyhow as 10 or more years it is iffy how long it will last.

 

I'm going to run this light for awhile, it's pretty brite!
I have a canabulized 19 LED board and lights from '33-'36 lamp that will be an easy install into this can! But right now, I need to start driving it!

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Great looking car!

 

That looks very familiar as I had a hand in building that light.