I am trying to upgrade my flashers to LED bulbs. One part of that is swapping out the standard flasher relay with an electronic version. I've purchased the parts and am ready to go, but no amount of searching has revealed the location of the flasher relay. Can anybody out there tell me where to find it, or would you have to kill me if you told? Thanks.

 

Bump de bump, bump, bump

 

I think what your after is the actual flasher not the flasher relay no?
The flasher should be under the drivers side dash left of the steering column. If it works just turn it on (blow in it's ear) and you should track it down by sound.
If it's the flasher relay your after then it should be located in the central junction box that usually is also located in the same area. I believe it's item # 21.
Is your thinking that you need to change out the flasher so that you can slow down the flash speed rate since LED's don't require very much amperage?
If so, it really depends on what type of LED lights you get. Many that are direct replacements for incandescent bulbs already come with resistors built in to remedy that problem.Worth a double check. There are also dedicate flasher/relay modules designed to not only covert to LED's but also give you the ability to program various sequences to your running, stop and turn lighting. These lil buggers sometimes are only the size of a dime. I do this with motorcycles all the time.
Hope this helps
Capt'n

 

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/showthread.php?p=13529149#post13529149

I'm having the same issue, I gave up and used load resistors

 

I don't want to have to use load resistors. The whole reasons for doing this is to reduce the current draw on my flashers. I'm a volunteer firefighter and sometimes am parked for hours by the side of a dark road while we're up a driveway on a scene. The stock flashers really suck down the battery.

Capt'n, I haven't had a chance to check out your suggestion. Either Pre-holiday life has been too busy, or in my quiet times it's been raining or freezing. Neither of which are conducive to working on the van outside. I can hear the mid west and central Canadian boys all whispering "Whimp." under their collect breaths.

 

I found the flasher on my '08 up behind the dash near the steering column. My 2012 doesn't seem to have one or at least I can't find it, the blinker sound is artificial and comes from the same source as the seatbelt reminder. QUOTE=Island Time;13875789]I don't want to have to use load resistors. The whole reasons for doing this is to reduce the current draw on my flashers. I'm a volunteer firefighter and sometimes am parked for hours by the side of a dark road while we're up a driveway on a scene. The stock flashers really suck down the battery.

Capt'n, I haven't had a chance to check out your suggestion. Either Pre-holiday life has been too busy, or in my quiet times it's been raining or freezing. Neither of which are conducive to working on the van outside. I can hear the mid west and central Canadian boys all whispering "Whimp." under their collect breaths. [/QUOTE]

 

Turns out my van doesn't have a flasher relay in the standard sense. Instead it has a Smart Junction Box (SJB) which is an electronic control box controlling a variety of circuits including the blinkers/hazards. The SJB monitors current draw on a circuit and disconnects the circuit if the draw is excessive and throws a code. It also monitors the current draw on the flasher bulbs and if the current draw is too low, i.e. a bulb is burned out, it causes a high speed blink to happen instead of the standard blink. LED bulbs without a load resistor cause the SJB to think the bulb is burned out and go into high blink rate mode. (Hmmm, now that I've done this, I wonder if it threw a code that it thought my blinker is burned out. I think I'll check it in the morning.)

Carrfamilynj, Your 2012 probably has the same setup. My 2009 has the same artificial tone for the blinker, not a relay click from earlier years. This tone appears to be generated by the SJB.

According to the service manual the SJB can be reprogrammed to turn off monitoring on the rear bulbs to accommodate LED bulbs. It makes no mention of the front bulbs. Still, running LEDs in the rear only would roughly half the current draw so it would be of some help. It depends on how much a Ford dealer will charge to reprogram the SJB. If it's too much I'll just buy a whole aftermarket setup to run in parallel powered off the auxiliary batter bank.

 

Great info, thanks! Do you have a good source for led bulbs? I use superbrightleds.com

 

I now use superbrightleds.com as well. I purchased a small panel and festoon bulb adapter to replace the dome light. Wow! What a difference. My aging eyes can actually see well enough to do something functional besides squint. I've replaced the dome lights in the cargo area as well with equally impressive results.

I has an interesting result from this effort. After buying my bulbs, which I think I actually bought on fleaBay, I read an article talking about bulb color. It stated that if the lense is colored you should use LED bulbs that were the same color as the lense. Using white LEDs behind a colored lense causes a shift in the color and a reduction in the brightness of the resulting light through the lense. I put an LED bulb in one of the rear lenses, left the other lense stock, and compared the results. The white LED behind the red lense had an odd off color red, kind of a washed out look, while the incandescent bulb behind the other lense had solid robust red color. If I get the SJB reprogrammed I will not be using these white bulbs. Instead I'll purchase some red ones.

It is important to note that the LED color chosen must be the color of the light given off by the LED itself, and not a colored tint applied to the LED itself or a cover over it.

 

I replaced all the dome light and courtesy/map light bulbs with natural white leds. I can leave the interior lights on indefinitely without a noticeable power drain. For interior bulbs I prefer the neutral white over the cool white that has a bluish tint. The exterior bulbs that are clear are all cool white. The only incandescent bulbs left on my van are the gauge pod lights and head lights.