SR/SR5 OEM LED headlight harness V2

Johnny, you want to edit OP to add this ^

could get lost in the mix of pages or link ^ post in


Might help? Might not. I know nothing

 

He agreed to flushing out a troubleshooting guide in post 3. We will get there.

 

Everyone with SR / SR5 harnesses. Polarity is super important with these (just as with the TRD OEM LED conversion harnesses). White w black stripe always to white with black stripe, that is the ground, it is labeled as such. Positive high beam on the driver side is solid white, it's easy to get that confused. Positive high beam on the passenger side is solid yellow. I didn't realize anything would work on the SR harnesses without that ground established since the TRD harnesses are completely non operational until polarity is correct on that piece. Unfortunately there is no OEM male H9 connector and no way to force polarity, you have to line up the colors and match the tabs to the curved H9/H11 females.

Lots and lots of people have had some legit trouble with this piece and I haven't hammered the point home well enough but it's the entire reason why we include labels on each wire. If anyone is confused, more detail here:

 

We are also researching some potential trouble with the VLR resistors. Had a few reports of people adding them after observing hyperflashing and then things not working. I might need to provide a different resistor.

 

I just processed a return so now I have exactly one of these in stock.

 

Also, for the record, from here on out, all sales on these are going to be final.

 

I will have a trouble shooting guide coming shortly. If anyone is having issues, feel free to contact me. There haven’t been many issues that I am aware of, but I can’t recall any that I haven’t been able to solve. Unfortunately these do have some electro-mechanical parts which can fail, but I’ve not seen many failures. I do test everyone before it is sent out. But my testing does not include the resistors or the relays unfortunately. I don’t think testing the resistors is really an option anyway. These trucks are temperamental as to the load on the turn signal, so I have tried to add just enough load without exceeding to truck’s limits. One other thing that can affect the balance is other devices like LED taillights or even turn signals in the mirrors. But until I get that trouble shooting post up, feel free to reach out to me. I don’t want to leave anyone with a bad taste over these, that was never my intent.

 

Did this sell? Looking to pick up a harness soon, I just got my trail edition and saw these were out of stock. In for the next batch

 

Yes, it sold.

 

For anyone experiencing trouble with the 15 ohm resistors (used in the latest batch of harnesses) I'm working on getting a batch of 25 ohm resistors which could work better for some, particularly those who may run modified taillights such as the vled tails.

15's:
https://www.vleds.com/vlr-15-wp.html.html

25's:
https://www.vleds.com/vlr-25-wp.html

In general, the best plan for resistance is start with nothing connected then wait and observe hyperflashing. If hyperflashing is consistent then add resistors but always add and observe, don't just connect and expect that's the final answer.

I'm not certain that going from 15's to 25's is some sort of silver bullet for all problems, I tend to suspect it is not. But, after extensive discussion with @Puppypunter I think the 25's are potentially the closer match for a swap from the SR turn bulb to OEM LED. It's just not a clear cut math problem which is the painful part of it all, the ECU does what the ECU does and we're tinkering with a black box trying to soothe it into submission.

 

@daveeasa Any source for where to get a harness for a SR5 since you're not doing them anymore?

 

None that I know of, no.

 

There was one person who had a lightly used harness he wanted to return. If that person reads this, send a DM to @JDAISE and make a deal if you want to.

 

Does @Puppypunter make them to sell?

 

Johnny is the brains of FBC.

 

Hey all, sorry for my absence as of late. Just want to post an update on these for anyone looking to acquire a set, or anyone that may run into issues.

First, let's knock out the potential cause of an issue. As mentioned by @daveeasa above, there could be an issue with the 15 Ohm resistors. Not that they are bad, but that they may cause too much load on the circuit. Using VLEDs specs, the VLR15 presents a 0.85A load at 12V, while the VLR25 presents a 0.5A load at 12V. So that is a difference of 4.2W, which isn't much on paper. But the ECU on the SR/SR5 is pretty temperamental to say the least. So in some cases, that extra 4.2W (which can be more to be fair at 13.8V, and thanks to Ohms law, amp draw increases with voltage). How this issue manifests itself is by locking up the turn signal circuit. So it will blink once briefly when first turned on, but then not turn on at all after that. Normally, when eliminating a halogen bulb for an LED, you can add a load equal to the bulb you removed. The reason this gets a little more messy with the OEM LEDs is that Toyota has added an internal resistor to the LED headlights. That makes them capable of a straight swap for the TRD, but the TRD uses a 7440 (25W) bulb, where the SR's use a 7442 (28.5W) bulb. This puts the load really close to being okay for the SR, but just that 25W load isn't always enough, so without the additional resistor, the turn signal will occasionally hyperflash. Determining an exact load to avoid this has proven to be beyond me. I have experimented with a lot of different combinations, and getting consistent results just hasn't happened. All that said, adding the 25 Ohm VLR25 has not manifested the over load issue, and seems to eliminate the occasional hyper flash issue. So, as it sits, if you have 15 Ohm resistors and aren't experiencing issues, you're okay keeping those. If the ECU doesn't mind them, you should be okay. IF the turn signal stops working, reach out and let me know, but don't worry, we believe we have the solution, which is simply swapping to a smaller resistor (25 Ohm is less resistance than a 15 Ohm). A possible solution to this is simply removing the resistor from the equation. If you get hyperflash, adding a smaller load will probably do it.

An addendum to the above if you are running Total tails or really any LED replacement taillights. Some taillights have resistors built in, some have them added externally. Obviously, I am not able to speak to all the options out there, but I can hopefully offer some help if your aftermarket tails have external resistors. A lot of time, 6 Ohm resistors are used. This combined with a 15 Ohm in the front seems to be too much. If this is the case, and you can swap the rear for a 25 Ohm, this seems to do it. Sorry I don't have an exact answer, as the math on these really doesn't work like it should. Things that should absolutely be negligible like wire length seem to play an unexpected role in this, so while on paper, it shouldn't matter if the load is on the front or rear, it actually does affect it. So if you are running resistors in the back, it may need some trial and error to find a good balance.

Now, as to future availability. Dave and I want to make sure we have solved the issue for sure, which I believe we have, but my skeptical nature always would like some more data. Regardless of anything, I am going to be out for at least three weeks beginning this coming Monday for a shoulder surgery. Once I get back to the point that I can physically resume building them, I most likely will (unless some more data comes in proving we haven't actually solved the issue). That may be resuming the V2, or if we can find a less complicated/cheaper way to produce them, there could be a V3, who knows. As to what Dave will decide at that point I can't speak to. I hope he will resume the sales, as he is much more professional than me with that department. I tend to be a little scatter brained, so day to day operations tend to suffer. But my goal is to have a decision by then. While I am all for making a cheaper solution, I just haven't found a good reliable, easy to use solution to that. But in my defense, I never said I could do it for cheap, just that I could do it

Hopefully this helps with anyone's anxiety that their headlights are not going to work or that they won't be able to get a set of these to upgrade their truck. If you are experiencing issues, feel free to reach out to me. I WILL answer, but it might take a bit.

 

Thanks for the update, i'll keep an eye out for the next release.

 

Thanks Dave and Johnny for the help on this. V2 harness worked beautifully. No resistors neeeded as of now. Still in observation period but looks great and man what a difference. Night and day between halogens. So happy I made this upgrade

 

Update, day 2 oem headlights v2 harness are working flawlessly. I have a stock sr5 no upgraded leds of any kind. I think this the key to success with the v2 harness. As long as you don’t have other leds they work as they are supposed to. And no resistors were needed