Meso Total Tail Stage 1 - Problem

Awesome thank you sir! Yeah I don’t have any plans to change, I just wanted to make sure I know that’s a good alternative if my total tails ever start burning out or malfunctioning.

 

I mainly wanted the kit for the different orientation of the lights, and brighter reverse lights.

Do you have any of the resistors installed in with your kit? I'm assuming hyper-flashing would still be an issue with a signal on and putting it in reverse? I lived with that for the 2.5 years and found myself rarely in that situation, so it's a non issue

 

VLED is the best option IMHO

 

any luck with getting switchback bulbs from VLEDs for the MESO total tail kit?

 

Is there any chance this could be related to the weather/season? It has been my understanding that the resistance in the lights/harness in the Meso kits was always teetering on angering the trucks electrical system. Reading through posts when I got my own Stage 1 kit, the need for resistors seemed hit or miss among other owners. The reverse/turn signal scenario didn't even happen every time with my lights, I just bought the resistors to eliminate the problem one and for all. Could the whole system be sensitive enough that colder winter temperatures can have an affect?

 

I don’t think temperature plays a part. Hyperflash is based solely on amp draw, which varies directly based off of the voltage at any given moment. In my experience, all TRD models (Sport, OR, Pro) and Limited needed the resistors to prevent hyperflash in reverse, but they did not need anything for just normal turn signaling.

Most of the SR/SR5 models I’ve seen post up here needed resistors simply from installing the bulbs. So those should plan on resistors regardless.

I think the hyperflash on TRD models is directly related to bulb/switchback design. A TRD will hyperflash if there is no bulb at all. It will not hyperflash with an LED in place. So we know it is monitoring current for bulb outage alerts, but it is not needing much current since even a measly LED can satisfy it. The fundamentals of a switchback is that the white mode is a constant mode and turn signal overrides the constant mode. They have to build it this way because switchbacks are means to be used as a DRL type function where turn signaling always takes priority. I think what ends up happening is that when you turn signal normally (not in reverse), the turn signal pulls current like always which keeps the system happy. When you’re in reverse, I think it routes the constant reverse feed to power the Amber circuit and just blinks it until the turn signal request goes away. Meaning it’s no longer pulling any measurable current on the turn signal circuit while the truck is in reverse, and hence no hyperflash.

I think the reason for the differences between SR/SR5 trims and TRD is that Toyota probably knew when they designed the 2016 that LEDs were coming later (like in 2020). So they probably designed the amperage needed to prevent hyperflash to be lower due to the future LED options. Just my guess.

As to why yours doesn’t always hyperflash on reverse, is there a chance you sometimes do your testing with the engine off? With the engine off, voltage will be lower and so amp draw will be higher. With the engine running I can’t see why bulb function in reverse would ever change - it should be constant and it seems like everybody hyper flashes while running the turn signal in reverse (unless they installed resistors to fix it).