LED spot lights whining?

hey guys. I have a pair of MicTuning 8in LEDs on my rear bed and i just hooked them up and they work great but they are emitting a small amount of "whine" when turned on. My front CaliRaised light bar does not make this noise. Just curious what it could be?

 

Anybody?

 

Try switching the ground location or cleaning the contact area better

 

They are wired right to the battery. Although i will admit there are a few wires already on there lol

I guess i am just curious of "why" that would happen.

 

So i switched the ground from the acrual battery to the ground/chassis near the battery and the whine persisted. Hrm still stumped

 

Is the whine coming from the light itself, or form somewhere else in the harness/relay? Sometimes with cheaper lights, the case is not properly sealed (which will also lead to water intrusion later on) and the internal board will whine due to cheap components. The low quality seal will allow sound to escape as well as water to get in. If that's the case, I wouldn't count on the lights lasting long, but that's why we get cheap lights to begin with. One way to test if it's a faulty ground would be to shorten the ground wires' run. Instead of running ground from the bed of the truck and connecting to the battery, try to find a local ground like a body mount bolt or something on the frame. Test each light individually and you should be able to narrow down the culprit. Don't just disconnect the ground wire and connect it somewhere else- the idea behind this is to use a shorter length of wire to help complete the circuit with less wire, thus less resistance.

 

Thanks man. I Was pondering that as well. The lights are in the rear so the wire run is longggg. When i test fited the relay setup without the long run, the whine wasnt there

Btw, the lights are brand new and have no water intrusion. However they are definately cheapiah lights. Hehe

 

Nothing wrong with saving a buck. If something does what it's supposed to do, who cares how much it costs or what brand it is? I love cheap lights. It cost me a whopping $12 for my rock lights.

 

What did you use?

 

The small button head leds from eBay. The kind with threads on the back that can be secured with a nut through a hole. They work, but were a paint in the ass to wire because of the 40 gauge wires (exaggerated, but they were really thin wires and none of my strippers could get the wires stripped without breaking a few of the hair thin strands).

 

Ok thanks
Any pics at nite?

 

Lol id actually be interested in pics also. I plan on regrounding the long run (about 25% down the run from the rear lights today, hope that helps

 

I have a cheap ebay 42" curved above my windshield and it buzzes like a mofo when switched on. the wires are as short as I can make them whilst grounding them in the engine bay. I used sandy paper and made sure I was touching bare metal on ground. Sounded like that since day 1 when I had the el cheapo wiring harness it came with, to now, with the "no expenses spared" OTRATTW switch and bussman relay pannel.. I just live with it.

 

Best way to test wiring is disconnect the lights (if you can) and using two leads on the light hold the positive and negatives carefully direct to the battery terminals.

It's a stupid idea to do this BUT it does allow you to test the lights/wire length. I'd bet it's just being cheapo LED's they make a bit of electronic whine. How thick is the wiring and how long is the run?

 

I have an Ikea LED desk lamp that does the same thing. It drives me crazy. I disassembled it, cleaned contacts, added ferrite bead. Nothing helped. The sounds is coming from the LED itself. Other LED lights I have do not do the when plugged into the same outlet. I think it's just a shitty LED.

 

Didn't read through the thread, so forgive me if this has been covered.

This SAME EXACT THING happened to me with my new ditch lights the other day. They were cheapo $20 lights off Amazon. I wired them up, but when I turned them on with the truck off, they whined. With the truck on however, they didn't.

I rewired them with 16 gauge wire and the whining pretty much ceased to exist. I was talking about this in another thread and I think it has to do with the lower voltage from when the truck is off. Do they whine with the truck running?

 

Considering buzzing is vibration I wonder if you potted it would it help?

 

Wow. All good discussion so far guys!

Just to add.... BEFORE i added the 8-9 foot of shielded 8 guage wire underneath the truck for the long run, i tested the lights on the little two foot long relat harness i made and there was ZERO hum (when the truck was off)..And then when i added the long run, the hum was introduced (truck off also).. I havent tried it with the truck on yet! I was just curious why it would do this, or if it was bad.. When i get sone free time im goi g to ground it locally in the rear and check back in with u guys

 

Shielded 8 gauge? Putting 10 amps each down that wire? You running through a relay? Fuse? Straight through the switch?

 

Are you running your ground all the way back up into the cab? The rule of thumb is to try and keep grounds as short as possible. I recommend grounding them straight to the frame. I know on the drivers side near the rear wheel there's a factory ground point you can ground at. For reference, that slightly rusted bolt to the right is the top of my rear shock.