We just bought a passat and I was buying some HIDs for them from DDM and while at their warehouse I saw LED brake lights, turn signals, etc.

I decided to buy the LED lights for my license plate, which work fine when headlights are on....except when my headlights are turned off they just pulse on and off real quick (is this an issue??) The dude said I don't need resistors for the brake lights or license plate lights, just turn signals.

Also bought 2 LED brake lights for the R and L side. Put them in, they work fine when the headlights are off.

When I turn the headlights on, they are lit up before I even push the brake light(normal). Then when I push the brake the lights don't get any brighter, they just stay the same as when I am not pushing on the brake. So at night when someone is behind me they really won't see any brake light light up other than the 3rd top LED strip.

Kind of hard to explain, but if anyone understands and could give me some input that'd be great. thanks

 

The brake light bulbs have 3 contact points, the metal base is the ground or negative source. Then on the bottom are two bumps, both for positive power, typically 12 volts to both.

On standard bulbs you have two filiments, one is smaller than the other, the smaller being used as the running light.

On LEDs, since there isn't separate filament, they typically use a big resistor to reduce the voltage which in turn reduces the light output for running lights, then a smaller resistor for when brake lights are on. LEDs all have to have resistors since most are not designed to handle 12 volts, usually 3 to 4 max.

For your running lights and plate lights, due to voltage left in the wires, its not uncommon to see some pulsing when the car is off, you can add a resistor to get rid of extra energy which should remove the pulsing.

On you brake lights, it's possible you have the bulb in wrong and so the brake lights level already on when you hit the brakes with lights on, but take a picture of the bulb and we might be able to help more.

 

Smitty: thanks for the reply. I just went back to DDM and got resistors.

I got a pic of the 2 resistors I just purchased....anyone know how to install?

 

They clip on to the positive and negative wires just before the bulb. So if you pull the bulb housing out and pull the wires straight so they are parallel to each other, each end of the resistor connects to one wire so it looks like an H. Make sense?

 

So that would be the big plug that you pull out from the back of the housing....right? Which ones are the pos and neg..the guy at DDM told me..I think one was green/black??.....sry i'm a noob to cars in general....20 y/o trying to learn

and they gave me those clips in the picture above....said something about feeding the wires from the resistor into those. i'm sure this is easy, as he said it was, but i'm still confused. all this wire splicing, pos and negs....maybe take it to shop, unless I can figure this out. lol

 

Which lights are you trying to attach the resisters to? Brakes or plate?

 

Brakes for now. The plates seem to be OK..not flickering anymore. I want to do LED turn signals as well in the future, which I believe will also require another 2 resistors. haha

 

Ok, hopefully this makes sense and the attached diagram helps.

To start, my suggestion will be to install the resistor on the running lights first to see if that fixes the problem, if that doesn't work try switching to the brake lights.

Essentially one end of the resistor is connected to the ground wire, doesn't matter which end of the resistor, pick one end. Run one end of the resistor wire through one groove of the blue clip, preferebly closer to the hinge side as this will make it easier to get the bulb wire in the outside groove of the clip. When both wires are in, fold and snap closed! simple enough right!

Now here's the harder part. You're going to need a wiring diagram to figure out which color is brakes and which is running lights. I don't have my car at the moment or I would be able to tell you.

Can't find one, the other option is to use a voltmeter. Turn your running lights on and then with the voltmeter set for 12 volts, touch the black prong to the frame, or stick it into the black negative wire, and then take the red prong and stick it in one of the other two wires, one should read between 0 to 2 volts (brakes) and the other should read 12 volts (running lights).

Once you've found the running lights wire take the blue clip and other end of the resistor and connect to that wire.

Suggestion: Do one side and test to see if the problem goes away, if it doesn't, then try switching from the running lights wire to the brake lights. Once one side works the way you want, repeat on the other side light and you should be good.

 

Thanks for the resp man. My dad and I just tried messing with it. So confusing with all this running light, brake light, etc ********. I'll show him your response. I thought the running light and brake light was all in one? We plugged a few together and eh ended up not working, something isn't right. I guess i'll try again tomorrow. I know that brown is for the ground, but we didn't find the color for the other, and searched online for a little bit but found other coopers with the same plug, yet different colors argh

 

Hoping to have car tomorrow and I'll try to take a look and give you more detail. I haven't done this on a mini before but have done it on several other cars so I'm making some assumptions on this. If you can take some pics of the bulbs and bulb seat I can try to help more.

 

Awesome sounds good. posted a picture of the LED plate lights, bulb, and the plug, maybe yours is similar. Let me know if you need more specific pics ... bulb seat? man i feel like an idiot...don't know half this stuff, gotta learn sometime right

 

Ok, my previous post and drawing are incorrect. Most cars have the wires and bulb seat separate for each bulb but not the mini, found this post and this picture:


Is this what yours looks like?

If yes then the photo you took here is your wiring harness and where the resistor needs to go.


Sorry I still don't have my car yet, so I can't test the wires, but looking at other thread it does appear that the brown wire is ground for the brake bulb, then the last two wires on the left (black w/green stripe and grey w/yellow stripe) are the positive wires for running lights and brake light, but I don't know which is which.

If you have a voltmeter you can test this the way I mentioned before.

 

Yes that is what mine looks like. I got that part out and put the new bulb in the center hole.

Yeah see I don't have the gray/yellow (if that is the one). the one next to the green/black on mine is a gray/purple or light purp/dark purple...can't really tell. But I don't get it, am I supposed to splice both these wires and the brown one as well, then feed them through the blue plastic piece and clamp it down? Because I clamped it down with the little metal piece in there and it didn't cut the wire, rather made a dent in it, but didn't make it to the center. thanks for all your help

 

No, just one, but it could be the black/green or the gray/purple. You definitely don't connect those two together, that will mean brake lights are always on when the running lights are on.

So hopefully my new diagram helps make things clear. Let me know if you still have questions.

 

Just had a thought, before you go splicing...Two things to check on the bulb first.

1 - look at the bottom of the bulb, does it have two metal contacts or just one?

2 - It's possible that the bulb can be put it the holder turned the wrong way, meaning that the running light contact on the bulb is touching the brake light contact on the holder. So when your lights are off and it does light up with the brakes, it's only lighting half bright but you may not notice the difference. But when your lights are on, the brake light contact on the bulb is touching the running light contact which means the led bulb is at full brightness with the running lights on and when you hit the brakes, it already at full brightness.

Hope that makes sense.

 

diagram is perfect. one more question. when I'm clipping the cords from the resistor in, do i need to splice those wires as well? because the cord is really tough and
the mouth inside the clip isn't enough to splice it

I will also check that I have the bulbs in correctly

 

You can pre-cut the wire covering, just be careful not to cut wire too.

 

Success! you rock dude thanks again

 

No problem, glad to help.

Hey where did you get those bulbs from again? Been trying to find some like that, might have to get some to match

 

http://www.ddmtuning.com/Product-Cat.../Car-Truck-SUV

I can send you the part numbers, I brought mine into their warehouse and made sure they were the right ones.

 

hey how about some pics of the finished product? Both Day and night shots would be great

When i bough mine the Third Brake light was broken so i ordered the replacement Clear/Black led light for it along with the $20 Brake Flasher module which looks like it could help prevent a rear end collision. Still waiting for both of those to come in.

that started me thinking of improving all the rear lights with LED.