LED rear indicators

terryt said:

I've found these non polarity bulbs, they don't ship to the UK though and not canbus http://item.mobileweb.ebay.co.uk/viewitem?itemId=251084234877

Click to expand...

They will have a polarity sensing/switching circuit built in,which gets round the issue of leds only working one way round and which would explain the high cost and why they won't be compatible with can bus

I should have guessed you would have found something like this that nearly proved my led statement wrong, I guess I should have been more specific in my statement lol

In new Leon side light have positive pin on metal body and negative pin in bottom. It is not so good, because so many LEDS have pins reversed. If you want to use usual LEDS as side light (as me) you must "repins" the positive and negative connection. And second issue is resistors. Due very small current consumption of LEDS, you must use appropriate resistors in parallel connection with LEDS (without resistors Leon say "BULB ERROR"). Be carefull, resistors are very hot in action, whitch means that must be appropriate placed (i.e. glued to metal part of bodywork of car).

kopnyr said:

In new Leon side light have positive pin on metal body and negative pin in bottom. It is not so good, because so many LEDS have pins reversed. If you want to use usual LEDS as side light (as me) you must "repins" the positive and negative connection. And second issue is resistors. Due very small current consumption of LEDS, you must use appropriate resistors in parallel connection with LEDS (without resistors Leon say "BULB ERROR"). Be carefull, resistors are very hot in action, whitch means that must be appropriate placed (i.e. glued to metal part of bodywork of car).

Click to expand...

The problem with fitting resistors in line means you need to cut the cable to put in the resistor, which most people want to avoid cutting up their wiring loom,hence the long thread, if you're cutting the loom to put in a resistor you may as well just swap the wires over then as you will have already cut the loom once , doing one more cut is neither here nor there, the loom was damaged forever when you made your first cut so what's another cut

Far easy to buy bulbs that are can bus (have resistor built in) and just swap the pins on the light unit plug round as you suggest and I recommended in an earlier post

With a simple pin swap, you solve all the problems of fitting leds to a mk3 leon and you can put it back to factory at a later date with no sign that you ever did enything

Completely agree.
And for resistors, you cant cut anything, they have a plastic cap with metal pins inside and they are connected directly to wires. If you want to cut resistors in future, open the plastic cap, pull back metal pins inside cap, an there is nothing after the resistors.

Ive just ordered these and will come up with an easy way to switch the polarity without messing with the car: http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&id=200940759823

It was easy enough.

1 seperate the base my using a precision screwdriver as a wedge and unsoldering the 3 solder blobs:



Double check the polarity for my sanity:



Remove the outer ring on the pcb except from the bit which is slightly wider than the rest:



Trim the bottom piece to remove a piece slightly bigger than the bit of ring you just left:



Now you can add a new negative. Just melt the bottom bobble and pass it through:



Put some heat shrink on your new negative:



Then connect it to the bit of ring you left:



Trim and connect the old positive to the outer housing:



Superglue the bottom back on, switch the polarity and test:

Well done Dean, the job and the 'how to' share.

Andy said:

Well done Dean, the job and the 'how to' share.

Click to expand...

Pleasue, good to give something back.

Best news is that they actually work. This video does not really capture it but you can tell it's a much cleaner on/off. LED on the right. You will notice the vid actually ends with the left one on and the right off:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5z07YtVTgE

Oh, no errors either.

You can definitely see the difference. I've now got a few projects to keep me busy until the car gets here!

Wish there were some bulbs around for people who wouldn't be capable of the rewiring, i.e. me!

DeanC said:

Pleasue, good to give something back.

Best news is that they actually work. This video does not really capture it but you can tell it's a much cleaner on/off. LED on the right. You will notice the vid actually ends with the left one on and the right off:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5z07YtVTgE

Oh, no errors either.

Click to expand...

Just read this again and saw it was the right that was the LED I thought it was the left that was brighter I was thinking at the time it doesn't really go off like the right one does.
Your right Dean it doesn't do it justice

Btw you've a question in the vid comments DC

Dean, you are awesome! Maybe worth to make a clean thread and put it in the guides section. Great work!

Andy said:

Just read this again and saw it was the right that was the LED I thought it was the left that was brighter I was thinking at the time it doesn't really go off like the right one does.
Your right Dean it doesn't do it justice

Btw you've a question in the vid comments DC

Click to expand...

It's brighter in the indicator itself but less glare. What I was after was a clean on/off.

DeanC said:

It's brighter in the indicator itself but less glare. What I was after was a clean on/off.

Click to expand...

I see that having gave it more views, deffo less glare and a way cleaner on/off. Actually thought the right was the better indicator at the time anyway so mission accomplished

The left glare sucked me in to thinking brighter = LED but had I read your initial post properly *Strikes Columbo pose*

Really interesting DeanC. Thought it wouldn't be long before you got to work on this and got this to work.
Some Qs please:
1 Is the rectangle connected to the old positive the canbus resistor
2 Did you think of insulating the metal base from the remaining solder on the PCB ie the negative rather than chopping the metal case?
3 After supergluing, how about some araldite to ensure the PSB sticks well to the metal? I've found even glass bulbs have a habit of separating from the base leaving you with the base in the holder and difficult to extract.
4 Why doesn't some one in the Far East make a positive can LED amber indicator?

Really enjoyed this project as a great companion to the LED reversing light.

dephead2004 said:

Really interesting DeanC. Thought it wouldn't be long before you got to work on this and got this to work.
Some Qs please:
1 Is the rectangle connected to the old positive the canbus resistor
2 Did you think of insulating the metal base from the remaining solder on the PCB ie the negative rather than chopping the metal case?
3 After supergluing, how about some araldite to ensure the PSB sticks well to the metal? I've found even glass bulbs have a habit of separating from the base leaving you with the base in the holder and difficult to extract.
4 Why doesn't some one in the Far East make a positive can LED amber indicator?

Really enjoyed this project as a great companion to the LED reversing light.

Click to expand...

1 - yes

2 - you could do either just as easily

3 - it was strong enough. Only the very bottom with the pins goes into the fitting. Even if it separated you can still get the base out easily.

4 - they will at some point

I've been 'reading' the german seat-leon.de website, and it seems they are not having the same issues as you are over here. Could it be that it's just our RHD cars that have the reversed wiring?

The Thread:
https://www.seat-leon.de/vboard/showthread.php?102273-R%FCckfahrlicht-FR/page5

Videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i85fTXBlLG0&feature=youtube_gdata_player
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a16dULpt4o&feature=youtube_gdata_player

DeanC was the removal of the rear lamp cluster easy or difficult? Do you have any pics please?

dephead2004 said:

DeanC was the removal of the rear lamp cluster easy or difficult? Do you have any pics please?

Click to expand...

Piece of piss. No pics but if you open the boot you will see a little carpet cover next to each light. Under this is a big plastic 12mm hex nut (which can be removed with a flat head screwdriver). Undo this making sure you don't drop the white washer. Then just pull the light from the bit near the boot that is now loose in an arc towards the side of the car. The light is held on with two nobbles right at the edge on the rear quarter and will just pop out.

To refit you just push the nobbles back in and push it back round in an arc then put the nut in.