I am considering replacing my standard brake light bulbs with LED bulbs. The companies selling the LED bulbs, say a voltage regulator may be necessary for correct operation of the turn signal.

Has anyone installed the LED bulbs? Did you need the volt. reg.?

Thanks bill
2006 F350 V10 4x4

 

I haven't heard of a "voltage regulator" being needed, but I have heard of load resistors being needed. Maybe they are calling the load resistors voltage regulators?

The problem is some of the flasher circuits in automotive equipment require the load of a regular bulb to work correctly. An LED type bulb has very little load, so to make the circuits work correctly, you wire a resistor in parallel with the LED bulbs to raise the current draw up to the standard old bulbs.

 

Change all mention of "voltage regulator" to "load resistors".

Did anyone need to use the load resistors?

 

I've read people's setups on here and they used resistors. You need to find the voltage and current ratings of the bulbs you want to use, and voltage drop if you can, so you can figure out what kind of resistors you need to get.

 

It is better to use a HD 3 terminal flasher (check a #571 unit) or an electronic flasher unit that does not require the load from the bulbs to make it operate.

 

Thats what I did. The HD flasher stopped my indicators from coming on, until I swapped the front signals for LEDs as well. My solution to that was add more LED's. All 6 bulbs on the front and the taillights are LED's along with a fire strip under the tailgate. Now everything works normal.

 

-Strange, the HD flasher should not disable regular bulbs or indicators if installed correctly.

 

What I meant was, usually when you install LED bulbs, the power draw is so much less that your electrical system thinks the bulb has burnt out and will illuminate the the turn indicator to let you know there is a problem. The HD flasher seemed to fix that for me so the indicators wouldn't come on. Thats basically what the load resistors do, is increase the load to be similar to an incandescent bulb so your electrical system wont think the bulb has gone bad.

 

The low cost standard flashers use the lamp load current to heat a bimetallic element in the flasher causing it to break and make the circuit. The flasher just won't operate without enuf load which causes the indicators and remaining bulbs to burn constantly. Using resistors to dummy the load is a waste and another potential failure point.

The HD and electronic flashers don't care what the load is, they have a different internal circuit that does not require a specified current draw. There are different HD flashers with specific load capacities but they are not load dependent for operation.

 

Just go to Autozone and get a Trico EP-27 electronic flasher to replace your stock one. No need to change regulator or add resistors!

 

what about a newer truck, say an '06 F-350 that has a 5-pin flasher in it, anyone replace that with an electronic unit yet?