09-06-2017, 01:35 AM
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Member
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Join Date: Jun 2014
Location: SA, TX
Posts: 6,474
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Quote:
Originally Posted by wpoll
For what it's worth the caps and resistors do different things.
The caps smooth out the PWM pulses used to power the incandescent lamps on the later cars. The caps act as an averaging device. They stop the flicker during normal operation (but not usually the cold monitoring at start up). They sometimes also work to "slug" the cold and hot monitoring, although this can be hit or miss.
The resistors act as a dummy load for the cold and hot monitoring by the LCM. They stop the dash warnings etc. Coding out cold and hot monitoring should remove the need for resistors.
So depending on which lamp circuit you are putting LEDs into and if you want to re-code, you may or may not need caps, resistors, neither or both!
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^I second the above. But with the caveat that some LED bulbs (especially switchbacks) will require the installation of resistors to work properly. I'm not sure of the electrical reason for this... but I've run across switchback applications that will not work without resistors.
PS: My rear cold/hot monitoring is coded off, but the rear still required resistors before the bulbs would illuminate. 
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