LED lighting problems?

eskaeone · #1 01-14-2013, 01:03 PM

Hello all,
I recently changed all most all of the lighting in my 01' 4.4 X from stock to LED. some of the lights are holding up, others are burning out too quickly. For example, I got the sonar LED tail lights about two years ago and now all but one side of both sets of tails are not functioning. Meanwhile, I've had a set of sonars on my other car for 5 years with no problems at all. Any idea as to why this is happening?

Thanks for your help in advance.

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X5SND · #2 01-14-2013, 02:14 PM

Your X info would help for starters...

The cold monitoring function has been known to significantly shorten the lifespan of LED's. It can be turned off via coding. Search, there's a TON of stuff regarding the use of LED bulbs.

eskaeone · #3 01-14-2013, 03:35 PM

Ok excellent,
I appreciate your help.

SlickGT1 · #4 01-14-2013, 04:53 PM

Yup, cold monitoring is making your bulbs go bye bye.

fmugur · #5 01-14-2013, 05:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by X5SND

The cold monitoring function has been known to significantly shorten the lifespan of LED's. It can be turned off via coding. Search, there's a TON of stuff regarding the use of LED bulbs.

I have read this statement before but I am not sure I agree with it. LED is a semiconductor light source and these diodes support all sort of frequencies. I don't see how a check 12v signal will shorten the life of a LED. Heat is the most aggressive factor that can shorten the LED life. So, in my opinion disabling the cold monitoring will not increase the life of the LED bulbs.

SlickGT1 · #6 01-14-2013, 06:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fmugur

I have read this statement before but I am not sure I agree with it. LED is a semiconductor light source and these diodes support all sort of frequencies. I don't see how a check 12v signal will shorten the life of a LED. Heat is the most aggressive factor that can shorten the LED life. So, in my opinion disabling the cold monitoring will not increase the life of the LED bulbs.

Simple, it strobes the crap out of them every startup. Even if you have your lights on or not. That on / off strobe effect shortens LED life.

fmugur · #7 01-14-2013, 06:48 PM

That's the great advantage of the LED that the lifespan is greater than any other light bulb and it does not suffer from strobing or flickering. It's a semiconductor that should take any frequency. Heat seems to be the main factor that kills them.
I guess the quality of the LED is what matters. So if they are manufactured cheap then they will fail but I wouldn't blame it on the strobing. Being in an enclosure where heat can build up then the life of the LED will decrease.

fmugur · #8 01-14-2013, 06:52 PM

Check this link, specially number 5.
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X5SND · #9 01-14-2013, 10:34 PM

Here's what I've noticed.......

Some led bulbs seem to be more susceptible to failure in our trucks than others. Ive been running LED bulbs in the front markers and rear turn signals without any sort of coding whatsoever for well over a year with out any issues. The bulbs I'm currently on are just basic SMD can-bus led bulbs from autoillumination.com which do on occasion "strobe" but its at about 5% intensity and maybe 5 pulses total rendering it nearly irrelevant. That being said, I had another set kicking around (again from autoillumination.com) which were non-canbus chipped bulbs, and of a different chip configuration. These went crazy on start-up and had burnt out chips (each chip contained 3 LED's) after only a matter of minutes.

Now I'm just thinking out loud here....
I don't think its the actual "pulsing" on-off that kills them (led's can handle on-off switching just fine) but rather the current contained therein. I HIGHLY doubt there is enough heat within the headlamp housing around the marker bulb area to cause failure on that level.

TerminatorX5 · #10 01-15-2013, 12:10 AM

The LEDs are not being connected to the power source directly, they are at least connected with a resistor to limit the current and drop the voltage... most of the LED light bulbs are using some kind of circuitry that also includes an electrolythic capacitor(s), which are not taking the high current strobbing too lightly and may malfunction (leak or short within itself), as a result, passing undesired 12V voltage (most LEDs are 5V) onto the LED itself which may result in the murder of the LED...

I did not think that anyone needed the lecture on the operation of the semiconductors but since folks are asking... lol...

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