LED hyper blink mod

Yep more than one way to skin this cat. And for many the Napa, eBay, Amazon etc EP35 is an affordable and easy route. Some like to tinker.

I'm on a Freddy emu with split second o2 module after having an AEM FIC. I just can't leave well-ebough alone I guess.

FIC vs EMU is a whole nother thread lol

 

Ermahgerd you actually took the OEM flasher relay apart and modded it for the LED signal bulbs?!?! You have been added to a very short list of mine of dudes here on TW that I've declared my idols. You're one now
This is so overkill and overly extra that I looooove it. You/this post gonna make me order LED blinker bulbs just so that I can have a reason to do this!!
I'm glad you shared this hermano

 

I made the list- niiiiiiice

 

There is one negative of having modified the sense resistor. If for whatever reason one of the LED bulbs develops a semi-short let's say will take 8A, that is similar to the normal load with hazard lights on. That current would make the resistor quite hot - 0.1 ohm at 8A is 6.4W. The original metal tape (sense resistor 0.03 ohm) would take about 2W - and I believe this is way under the power rating for that resistor. I do not like hot electrical components in 25 years old truck. Changing the 10A TURN fuse to something smaller (like 3A) is only a partial solution as the hazard lights are sharing 15A fuse with horn, so really the worse case scenario is that that load sense resistor might take up to 15A, and that is over 20W inside the flasher.

Solution with pull down resistor, while it is more complicated than just replacing the sense resistor, keeps the original power load and everything up to original Toyota design.

 

Thanks for raining on our parade, Mr. Buzzkill.
You make valid points.
I thought we didn't like the idea of splicing in a resistor to the wiring of the circuits? Where would you physically splice the resistor into the circuit? I definitely could be misunderstanding you though. Thanks for taking the time to clarify for me

 

Welcome to the list buddy! Lol

 

You know who you are
Speaking of my tacoma gurus/false idols that I falsely worshiprofl I haven't seen dirty pool around for awhile... He better be okay

 

@RysiuM good points for sticking to the EP35. But I'll roll the dice with a funky LED that doesn't fully short, but kinda shorts. If my relay goes poof, I already have a replacement haha. I still like the idea of bad bulb (open) detection. Or maybe its the vet in me that doesn't want to do any pre-checks on stuff anymore when it can be automated. I found my cbr600rr rear break light to be out by inspecting things- would have been great if there was an indicator for that vs. due diligence fucking around in the garage- been riding dirty for months I assume.

 

The flasher is the only "burned bulb detection" indicator in all 1st gen Tacoma lighting. I can imagine how it happened: Pre-electronic flashers were bi-metal ones (or older version had a wire that while heating up was expanding and moving the contact - I remember one from FIAT 125). The "thermo-mechanical" flasher by design had a feature that was hyper-flashing when there was not enough current running through the thermo-expanding element. It was not done on purpose, it was just a nature of the beast. When mechanical flashers got replaced by electronic one I guess designers got the task to have 100% identical behavior of the new electronic flasher as the mechanical one. So they implemented a hyper-flashing feature. This is my guess. I doubt it was intentional as the burned bulb detection does not work when hazard lights are engaged.

In any way I am happy to have it replaced with EP35 - less "fancy" that truck is, the more reliable they are. I converted all my bulbs to LED (except headlights of course) over 5 years ago and I had zero failed bulbs since then. I don't need a warning that will never happen.

1. Trace cut between sense resistor and pin 7



2. Pull-down resistor 100kOhm between pin 1 and pin 7



3. Voltage divider resistor 560 ohm added between sense resistor and pin 7



Another view of the connection point for this resistor



All added resistors are low power (low current) circuit.

 

Why not headlights?

 

Bacause I'm sane

 

Oh oh I see, resistor directly on the relay itself, not spliced into wiring like my noob arse was thinking. Very cool man. Those pics are awesome too! You always do things in a solid way even if overkill as well

 

I'm not even certain a bulb out detection system for an incandescent bulb based on current would detect a bad LED bulb. They're completely different animals. Actually, if it were a dumb LED bulb and one of the LEDs on it failed short, current consumption would go up a little.

 

That's an excellent point. LED bulbs don't fail like an incandescent one. The current might decrease, increase or stay the same. It it might start spiking up and down (with overheating BUC driver). Heck, the failed LED might even create a short.

 

That was not really a project to be working in a truck, but a challenge if I can make that beast do work the way I want.