DRL Failures, Locker Indicator Flashing, and Chasing Electrical Gremlins

Sorry, a bit off topic but does that device allow you to hook it up to your battery then you run all your accessories (ditch lights, cb radio, light bar etc) directly to it? I've been looking for something like that as my wiring is getting to be a mess as I have like 6 power cables going to my battery, lol.

 

You can check out the currently online users section of TW and see the thousands, if not tens of thousands, of hits bots make on this site every day. It wouldn't take more than a basic set of algorithms coupled with GL fingerprinting to identify in specificity who we all are, where we live, and where our vehicles are serviced. This information could be handed over to paying customers, like Toyota, for aggregate use or to identify potential areas for loss. The internet is freakily powerful and forums like this offer a huge, dynamic repository of data.

 

Even more simple to note, this thread has had a lot of "guests" watching. Right now as I type there are 28 members and 12 guests watching the page. Who are all these guests?

 

@therealprotaco

Maybe unrelated - maybe not?

This story is based on AC (Not DC). But LED's are kinda new to this game. So Maybe something there? Anyway.

I was talking to a fellow electrician about various jobs that we have been on. He told me the story of a commercial lighting job he installed where all of the fixtures were LED. Not sure if you know what a 3 Phase Service is? But in large installation's, it's commonplace to use 2 or 3 phases (120V +) and share a single neutral (120V -). Long story short, the installer was sharing the neutral on 3 different lighting circuits. Now here is the good part - After the install was complete, the electrician started turning on lights to make sure everything worked. Turned on the first switch - all the lights worked on that circuit. Turned on the second switch - weird sh!t started happening. He said that 5 fixtures were damaged before he gained enough senses to turn OFF the circuit. He told me that the problem was corrected by installing (2) more neutrals (so that each circuit had it's very own neutral).

Maybe sharing grounds (on a DC Circuit) "could" have the same affect?

Just FYI.

 

What year was this?

 

Say that S word one more time...

 

My friend didn't really say. I suspect within the last couple?

 

LEDs are designed to run on low voltage, DC circuits. In AC applications, the bulbs require drivers that effectively bleed that voltage. For your buddy's application, the neutral lines needed to match the wire gauge for current carrying capacity and he sounds like he baked the drivers on those AC bulbs. Of note, if you don't have a driver, the LEDs on an AC circuit would switch on and off at the frequency of their parent circuit (in most cases, 60Hz). It's a helluva seizure-inducing light show if you've never seen it.

 

So you have confirmation on the noise source, but zero confirmation on the reason to the failure.

On the equipment I work on, LED lights are common place and failure is common. We have JW Speaker headlamps that were failing regularly until they were updated. With these high powered LED lights the failure point was obvious. The driver circuit would burn up causing the output to diminish, yellow or shut off completely. On the smaller LED's, such as the DRL's there is seldom a visual clue to the reason for failure, but I would still look at the driver circuit as the main reason. Now whether there is an external source causing the failure, I can't say.

I hope that in this case the problem is solved and you can move on.

 

So you don't know anything about 3 Phase 4 wire circuits? The neutral only hast to be big enough for (1) single phase. Because every time you add an additional phase, you reduce the load on the neutral.

 

He should have used 3-pole breaker and burned up more lights than he did.

 

He never made it to the 3rd switch.

 

I really don't know how they figured out that sharing the neutral was the culprit. This type of installation is quite common for large installs. Done quite a few myself.

 

each circuit is 'supposed' to have its own neutral.

LEDs on an AC circuit use drivers to rectify into DC power (like your alternator) and smooth it out (capacitors, choke, similar to you cars battery)

disclaimer: im not an electrician, just fascinated by that tingly feeling you get when you think all the power is off and touch the black wire...or red, or green, or blue, or whatever the ass before you installed.

 

Sorta sounds like he got 2 legs and no neutrals to those lights.

 

Point being, sounds like his install was unbalanced. I presume he wired one phase to neutral on the first circuit. You only reduce the load on the neutral when all of the circuits are de-energized. If one is energized, in order to remain balanced, the second phase sends current back to the neutral bus. This, presumably, could have damaged each fixture's rectifier.

Veejay Sharma, an Electrical Engineer with Samlex, wrote this great whitepaper on 120/240 VAC single split phase and milti-wire branch circuits. If you won't take my word for it, maybe he can shed some light on it... no pun intended.

 

Thanks for all the additional info guys!

Does anyone have an opinion on using diodes to keep feedback current out of the stock electronics? I’d like to have an ignition switched circuit to use but want to make sure it’s “shielded”. My thought is to have an add-a-fuse in the ign2 under the hood and a relay with a diode in between. I can then use that relay to trigger any other relays that I want to be switched.

 

It’s a nonlinear load. The neutral needs to be upsized. Quite common in the commercial/industrial world. I’m surprised an electrician did not know this.

 

Yup. Evidently I know nothing about 3Φ-4W installs though.