Installed LED's in my car...but even when "off" they stay dimly lit.

[BP-Revo]

Long story short, I had to replace a few bulbs in my G35 and in the process I replaced the majority of the running lights and interior convenience lights with white LEDs to get rid of the yellowish looking light.

Anyway, everything went smoothly except my map lights. I have them on the "auto" mode where they turn on when you open the doors (or unlock the car/turn off the engine). However, when they are "off" (door shut, engine on), they are still very dimly lit (just enough for me to notice they are producing light).

If I turn off the auto mode (so its not controlled by doors) the bulbs shut off 100%.

I've come to the conclusion that it's an issue with the car allowing current through despite being "off." (Apparently other owners have the same thing.)

So my question is, is there a way I can wire in a resistor or something that will create enough load to drop the voltage so that the LED stays off when it should be "off" but have little effect when it's on?

[squeeforever]

Honestly man, I don't know of to many options. I've seen the problem before, but for some reason only on map lights. What kind of bulbs do the map lights use? Festoon? Rigid loop?

[BP-Revo]

Originally Posted by squeeforever

Honestly man, I don't know of to many options. I've seen the problem before, but for some reason only on map lights. What kind of bulbs do the map lights use? Festoon? Rigid loop?

DE3175 31mm festoon bulbs.

I replaced them with festoons that have 4 LED on them. My door lights (they are on the bottom of the door to illuminate the ground when you open the door) use similar bulbs and there are no issues there...along with the 9 other lights around my car I replaced with LEDs. It's just the map lights when it auto mode - if I don't use auto mode (lights off unless I turn them on manually), the are 100% off and then turn on 100% when I manually turn the lights on by pressing the light itself (they work perfectly fine). Only in the auto-door mode do I get a bit of residual glow.

[BrianG]

It could be a number of things really.

Chances are the circuit needs a certain load to function correctly. You could add a resistor in parallel with the LED set to draw more current, but it would just make heat for nothing. There are other ways to get around this, but would need to study the circuit (voltages during the on and off states, at the stock current draw) to come up with a solution.

[Semi Pro]

Originally Posted by BP-Revo

DE3175 31mm festoon bulbs.

I replaced them with festoons that have 4 LED on them. My door lights (they are on the bottom of the door to illuminate the ground when you open the door) use similar bulbs and there are no issues there...along with the 9 other lights around my car I replaced with LEDs. It's just the map lights when it auto mode - if I don't use auto mode (lights off unless I turn them on manually), the are 100% off and then turn on 100% when I manually turn the lights on by pressing the light itself (they work perfectly fine). Only in the auto-door mode do I get a bit of residual glow.

the same thing happend when i replaced the bulbs in my mazdaspeed 6, after reading around alittle bit i found out it a common thing now days and it hasnt caused any problems for over a year, voltage draw over the ACC circuit was the same with both bulbs according to my fluke

[BP-Revo]

Alright, I finally got some pictures taken. I just took them with my iPhone so they aren't great.

This is a picture of the dimly lit map light.



As you can see, it's barely lit (ignore the light on the bottom, that was my porch light). It's not a distraction or anything, but it's annoying cause it isn't "perfect."

Here are the map lights on. Very very bright, as you can see.



And since I took them for the members of the car forum, I figure I'd post up the rest of the pictures. Again, from my iPhone so quality is terrible but the colors is pretty accurate. This one of the headlight turned out quite well (I was actually rather impressed).





Door-bottom courtesy light.


Some of the headlights/front with the low beams off.

[J57ltr]

Originally Posted by BrianG

It could be a number of things really.

Chances are the circuit needs a certain load to function correctly. You could add a resistor in parallel with the LED set to draw more current, but it would just make heat for nothing. There are other ways to get around this, but would need to study the circuit (voltages during the on and off states, at the stock current draw) to come up with a solution.

What Brian said. a 1K ohm 1/2 watt will work perfectly. you could use around a 2k resistor 1/4w and you should be fine, but a 1k will work for sure.

Jeff