LED lights

I decided to change the old rear lights for brighter LED lights. Funny how the simplest thing can become a major issue.

Firstly, turn indicators in Australia must have a feature (to meet Australian standards) that lets the driver know when a 'bulb' has blown, usually this is a rapid flash speed. New Zealand doesn't have this requirement but most relays have this function anyway.

Because an LED draws so little power, the relay thinks the bulb is blown and flashes rapidly. One solution is to add a resistor to each light to increase current draw but this seems to defeat the purpose of LEDs which is to reduce power usage. The other option is to replace the flasher relay with one designed for LEDs. Before I knew it the LED light costs were mounting up. Of course there are a number of different types of relay units some have two pins, some three and there are three or four different layouts of the pins. In the end I made some short leads with a spade connector on each end and connected it this way. All in all, quite a few hours spent over this small issue.

The new relay also does not make a sound; not a big issue but does take a bit of getting used to.