LED Dome Light Issue

You're telling me! I about fried my finger when I took out the bulb.

 

Same issue.

I'm about to get another much higher resistance resistor to put in parallel to bring the overall resistance down just a tad bit and see if it makes it more consistent. It might be the heat itself as well.

If its the resistance then its probably that resistors can have a +/- deviation, maybe this one is 5% or something and its just far enough more resistive as to be an issue. I can probably put some tiny 1+ megaohm resistor in parallel to eat up that +5-10% and it can be a 1/4 watt or so because it will have very little current through it.

Edit, little online parallel circuit calculator has me thinking maybe 1-5K ohm to get into the deep 10% too much resistance with the provided 100ohm.

 

same issue, I'm about to put the OEM back in

 

If anyone's interested - I purchased a set of these for my 2003 Prerunner. One, they are too long, and very hard to install. Two, they didn't work at all. Not on "On" or "Door". I reversed them, still nothing. Returning them for a refund.

 

I use OE style bulbs. I love LED but I refuse to run a resistor, seems like such a waste of energy, they get so damn hot. But as I am typing this I am thinking I might have some LEDs in the dome that work well...I will go verify.

 

Posted back in 2019 so perhaps they changed something along the way (?). I've also noticed that 2003/2004 tacos seem to have more issues when it comes to LED compatibility. Anyway, sorry they didn't work for you. Mine are still working without issue.

EDIT: Looking at the product images they now show, it's definitely not the same as the one I purchased back in 2019 from them.

 

I still appreciate the information you provided back then. As you stated, something's definitely changed on these bulbs. It was worth a try. As part of my return, I suggested they not list these as compatible for my year truck. They definitely didn't work at all.

I went back to the LED bulbs from @csjumper2003 - they may flicker after a while, but they work great when they don't flicker, and are plenty bright. The map lights are great.

 

Have you tried checking to see if https://www.superbrightleds.com/ has anything? Whenever I've ordered from them (cluster lights) I've always received a reliable product. They've been around forever so I'm sure they would have something for the dome light.

 

They do offer several LED options for a dome light. I ordered this one:

https://www.superbrightleds.com/catalog/product/view/id/202971/category/2/

Thanks for the suggestion. Fingers crossed.

 

I wish they would design these LED bulbs with resisters built in.

 

There are some like that - they call them CANBUS compatible. But the resistance is to high for what Tacoma dome needs. If you replace the resistor inside LED bulb with the lower resistance one, it will make much more heat, and heat kills LED chip.

To make it work you need external resistor or modify the dome light control board, what is probably quite difficult, as Toyota does not provide a diagram for it.

 

If the superbrightled bulb is a bust, I will go back to an incandescent bulb for the dome light. Does anyone sell one that is brighter than the oem bulb?

 

You probably won't find anything that is actually brighter. But the Superbrightled stuff is quite good, I have their LEDs in my dash, dimmable ones, required upgrading the dimmer to one from a later 4runner if I remember correctly, and the dome light with no issues.

 

Do they not make a drop in LED light that works out of the package w/o modding it?

 

They exist, it's what I use, I can pull one out a bit later to confirm what it is exactly. But got it from Superbrightled.

 

I just checked my dome light and I may be mistaken about the source, I think they are these from Amazon but I am not 100% certain.

$7 GIVEUBED DE3175 Led Car Bulb, 31mm 1.22in 3175 Festoon Led Car Lights Bulb, Super bright white DE3021 DE3022 Led Car Bulb Fit for Interior Map Door Dome lights, Pack of 6pcs

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07L9WS1TL

 

These are the ones I have

 

Back side:

 

I believe I have a set of those in my 2019 4Runner, and they have worked flawlessly for years. I have the one from superbrightled arriving Friday, so we'll see.

 

Most do work, however the dome light is the inconsistent one. It has to do with the "courtesy light" feature in 01-04 (definitely 03-04) and how it operates. 2000 and earlier no issues

I use SBL for my dash and HVAC lights, I went with white as I'm not an orange fan. But i have @csjumper2003 for my map and dome lights, no issues in the many years they have been in the truck, no flicker either