Gen2 Taillights Melting?

i think the problem might be because the factory bulbs are two in ones, there is two different filaments in each bulb, a bright filament and a dim filament, and thats why there are two sets of contacts.
now the real question is, does both filaments receive the same voltage (each filament is different causing different brightnesses) or are the filaments the same and they receive different voltages causing one to lite up brighter than the other?

if they are different filaments, then this would be a problem unless a few of the leds where hooked up the to dim wire and most of the leds where hooked up to the bright wire causing different brightnesses.

if the bulb receives different voltages for each filament, then there might no be enough difference in the voltage to show a different brightness due to LED's being much more efficient


you could always put in a LED light that works great for the brakes (does not light up at all for the parking lights) and then add a few regular LED's to the light housing and hook them up to the wire for the parking lights so that way you would have two different brightnesses from two different sources.
 
The dual filament bulbs have a bright filament and a dim filament. Both receive the same (full) 12V.

There are four contacts to the bulb, two per filament.

The problem seems to be that the LED makers assumed that two of the contacts would always be grounded, and that positive power would be switched on and off to each of the remaining two contacts.

The LS has positive (12V) power connected to two of the contacts all of the time (well, until the car goes to sleep). The LS switches ground on and off to the remaining two contacts as needed.

I could come up with a four transistor circuit that should resolve this, but I'm not interested in building it for anyone. If anyone out there is handy with a soldering iron and is interested, let me know.
 
Try this. It could work. The purpose of R1 and R4 is to keep the bulb out alarm off. See if a higher resistance value than 250 ohms will work. The higher the value that works, the less heat wasted by the resistor.
 

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Looks like my tint got me too. I have a small noticeable indentation on both tail lights. Hopefully the film doesn't break through like yours
 
Have you considered Osram joules L1224R LED's? They're supposed to be way brighter than stock.
link:hump:
 
HRLNKN said:
Have you considered Osram joules L1224R LED's? They're supposed to be way brighter than stock.
link:hump:
Click to expand...

Thats interesting. You tried them or just read the article?




joegr said:
MPS2907 should probably work, as long as the LED is less than 6 watts. You may have to reduce the resistance of R2 and R5.
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Ok, I'll try it with that. I'll have to order led bulbs to try first though but atleast I have something to work with to make it work.
 
Just the stuff I can find with Google. There is a guy on the ranger forums that has converted his brake/tail lights. He was selling kits for a while, but he does go into some detail on how he did it, with pics. Apparently these bulbs are OEM Ford parts made by Osram-Sylvania. Found a couple of links for those who are more inclined to jump into their wiring.
1, 2, & 3 and a the spec sheet:cool:
 
Thanks. I'll look more into them
 
Those look cool. But i dont understand. Do you need to modify the socket for those??

Alax let me know how it goes with joegrs wiring diagram. I dont understand tbat either haha.

I can send you my led bulbs alax. And if you figure it out ill pay you for the modified work.
 
I was a little confused at first, but it's just resistors and transistors wired together. What I dont get is how it's all suppose to go together. The bulb goes into the bulb socket and all this wiring goes in between the bulb and socket, so how will the bulb be held by the socket with all this wiring in the middle.


you dont have to send it to me. I'll prob just buy one of those or a cheap ebay one to work with
 
Alax7 said:
I was a little confused at first, but it's just resistors and transistors wired together. What I dont get is how it's all suppose to go together. The bulb goes into the bulb socket and all this wiring goes in between the bulb and socket, so how will the bulb be held by the socket with all this wiring in the middle.


you dont have to send it to me. I'll prob just buy one of those or a cheap ebay one to work with
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You have at least two choices.

1. Use the existing socket and cut the four wires going to it and wire the suggested circuit in between.

2. Buy a new socket to use.
 
So I can just wire this to the harness? I was under the impression it had to be in between the bulb and socket
 
Alax7 said:
So I can just wire this to the harness? I was under the impression it had to be in between the bulb and socket
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I don't recall the LS socket for certain. If it has four wires going to it, then you can wire into the harness. If it has three wires, then you will have to find a four wire socket, or I could come up with another circuit that would replace the LED bulb's built in dimming function and let you use the LED as a two wire device.
 
There is room in the actual bulbs, i am not sure how much space the adding of those things would take up. But i opened one of the bulbs already.

I wish i knew how to do this type of stuff.
 
Here's another way to try.

Catch #1 is that the value for R1 is wrong. You will have to experiment with different resistance values until you find one that gives you the correct brightness from the LED when the parking lights are on. The higher the resistance, the dimmer the light.

Catch #2 is that the LED will be slightly dimmer when the brakes are on with this circuit than it would be with the first circuit.


You would splice into the positive wire going to the socket. You would cut the two negative wires going to the socket and connect them as shown. Then the two negative wires at the socket would be connected together and to the circuit as shown.
 

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its happening to my tails too wtf :mad: it hasnt gone through the film tho
jus indents
 
ok, thanks joe. The new on seems easier to do.



Andrizzle said:
There is room in the actual bulbs, i am not sure how much space the adding of those things would take up. But i opened one of the bulbs already.

I wish i knew how to do this type of stuff.
Click to expand...

Just follow the diagram. The hard part is joe's part, coming up with what to use and how to wire it. He did that for us so we just have to copy his diagram and build it. Just get the parts he listed and the rest is wires
 
Mystery solved. You need to put a resistor on the running light wire so when the running lights are on, they are dim and when you brake, they light up their normal bright light. I used a 100 ohm 1/2 watt resistor wired onto the blue/black wire. Cut this wire and put the resistor in between the 2 ends, in series NOT parallel. Probelm solved, now I just have to try and get the bulb out message

Thanks joe for the circuit. I was going to go buy the things tomorrow but decided to try the resistors out and it worked.
 
Alax7 said:
Mystery solved. You need to put a resistor on the running light wire so when the running lights are on, they are dim and when you brake, they light up their normal bright light. I used a 100 ohm 1/2 watt resistor wired onto the blue/black wire. Cut this wire and put the resistor in between the 2 ends, in series NOT parallel. Probelm solved, now I just have to try and get the bulb out message

Thanks joe for the circuit. I was going to go buy the things tomorrow but decided to try the resistors out and it worked.
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This sounds promising.

Do you mean you still have an error message about the bulb being out?
 
Bulb out message is still there but the bulbs work great. The message only comes on when I have the running lights on. I thought andrizzle found a solution for that,hopefully. Those things are super bright by the way
 
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