[battlehawk1025]

hey guys/girls,
i have done my searching and turned up nothing, i was looking at changing my black lines to led lights, the only issue i have is the leds flicker due to the low draw of the leds when the car starts up. my question is, is there a way to stop them from flickering/strobing

[battlehawk1025]

anyone?

[mds82]

its a self test that the car does when it starts up. it pulsed power to the exterior bulbs to make sure there is resistance and not a blown bulb. No way to stop it that i know of

[battlehawk1025]

Originally Posted by mds82

its a self test that the car does when it starts up. it pulsed power to the exterior bulbs to make sure there is resistance and not a blown bulb. No way to stop it that i know of

i no that part i mean is there like a part i can put in the circuit to keep the leds from showing the flickering

[I335]

Originally Posted by mds82

its a self test that the car does when it starts up. it pulsed power to the exterior bulbs to make sure there is resistance and not a blown bulb. No way to stop it that i know of

Then why don't the stock bulbs flicker?

[battlehawk1025]

Originally Posted by I335

Then why don't the stock bulbs flicker?

cuz the stock bulbs take more power to go on, Leds take some thing like 1/10 the amount of power

[BDI]

Resistors??

[battlehawk1025]

Originally Posted by BDI

Resistors??

that will get the errors, not sure about flickering though

[Spydeputy]

why is it a problem, only last a few sec. and u can't see it f/ inside the car ?

[battlehawk1025]

Originally Posted by Spydeputy

why is it a problem, only last a few sec. and u can't see it f/ inside the car ?

cuz i'm fricken Ocd when it comes to that kind of stuff, it retest it every X amount of mins and will be strobing when im driving. thats the last thing i need.

[HermesRider]

Originally Posted by battlehawk1025

cuz i'm fricken Ocd when it comes to that kind of stuff, it retest it every X amount of mins and will be strobing when im driving. thats the last thing i need.

Plus it looks ghetto when you start the car... people are like is that the new vtec?

[NoMods]

what brand of led taillights are you getting? it is from e92?

[jzchen]

Sorry.... Gonna have to think about this one some more...

[jzchen]

This is a guess. It's the best I've got: An appropriately sized capacitor and a resistor?

Don't ask me to figure out what is appropriate!

(Reasoning: The problem is you have a high resistance "bulb" which will light up on very little current, read very sensitive. The resistance of a capacitor is 0 initially, and you are pulsing very little voltage/current to test the bulbs, not enough to make regular bulbs light up as noted. Since this charge will flow through the path of least resistance before the v effectively increases and light the leds, the right amount of capacitance should keep the bulbs from flickering, then dissipate through the resistor. The problem is too big a capacitance and the lights may not blink at all or have a big delay in response, on and off.)

Best of luck.

Actually, why don't you just try the resistor first, (a path of least resistance,) and if necessary add a capacitor.

[choicez]

I have the same issue with my sidemarkers. I changed it to the white/blue led and it flickers uncontrollably for a few seconds. I must agree it does look lame when you start your car...my friend was like "what the f*ck is wrong with your lights? it looks like lights at the airport."

the vendor confirmed that this is normal too.

[battlehawk1025]

yea, my friend has now now and IMO just looks fudged up. i'm gonna try a resistor first and than work from there.

[jzchen]

So these LEDs work fine when they are turned on? People with HID conversions from halogen have reported flickering when on. If that is the case here, then you'd need a capacitor for sure.

A friend has 4700uF capacitors for the 35W HIDs as a reference starting point. Someone else reported 470uF for a relay running HIDs, read less than 200mA, but I'm not really sure on that. They should verify this weekend if that works for flickering when on. (Some things to consider if you need a capacitor. I don't know what the wattage of the old bulbs are, kind of new to BMWs, but if you let me know I can take a stab. I just don't want to/won't work out a complete theoretical solution with those ugly capacitor formulas... I also don't have the LEDs to test at what V they actually light up.)

I'm leaving this weekend for a trip, so it might seem like I've disappeared, and I actually have.... But, I'll be back!

Again, best of luck everyone, and if my suggestion doesn't work, maybe you can sell your car to the police? J/K I'm quite confident something can be done, just not sure what it is yet....

[jzchen]

Huh, I go to check and someone has tested the 470uF on the relay:

http://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=267714

Sorry if it's OT, but it gives another thing to reference....

[E92-Lighting]

Originally Posted by armoredsaint

what brand of led taillights are you getting? it is from e92?

no, its not from me, and mine are error free

[battlehawk1025]

Originally Posted by jzchen

So these LEDs work fine when they are turned on? People with HID conversions from halogen have reported flickering when on. If that is the case here, then you'd need a capacitor for sure.

A friend has 4700uF capacitors for the 35W HIDs as a reference starting point. Someone else reported 470uF for a relay running HIDs, read less than 200mA, but I'm not really sure on that. They should verify this weekend if that works for flickering when on. (Some things to consider if you need a capacitor. I don't know what the wattage of the old bulbs are, kind of new to BMWs, but if you let me know I can take a stab. I just don't want to/won't work out a complete theoretical solution with those ugly capacitor formulas... I also don't have the LEDs to test at what V they actually light up.)

I'm leaving this weekend for a trip, so it might seem like I've disappeared, and I actually have.... But, I'll be back!

Again, best of luck everyone, and if my suggestion doesn't work, maybe you can sell your car to the police? J/K I'm quite confident something can be done, just not sure what it is yet....

okay thanks the bulbs states 21 watts so i have to do some math to figure out the right capacitor. i'll be out of town my self so when i get back i will mess around with a few and let u no

well i had a 10 ohm resister laying around i wired it in series and all that stuff, no luck
i figured out that each of the bulbs have a 6.857ish ohms of resistance (21watts 12v, 12^2 (squared)/ 21 w= 6.857ohms). i can use this to get the error out using the proper resistor, but i have no idea how to figure out the proper capacitor

[battlehawk1025]

my friend came up with the idea that we (if we could) reprogram the lighting module to send out less power on start up or somehow change the values.

[christopherolney2008]

I have purchased rear turn signal led light bulbs
For my car they show error on start up but if
I put the hazards on or individual turn signals
Left then right the error signal on dash board disappears can someone help please