Hi guys does anyone know of there's a chance anything led based replacing normal bulbs could potentially destroy circuits of the ECU or BSI if our cars have one.
I'm asking this cause a couple days ago a friend of mine who's got a peugeot 206 wanted to install a led strip (whites) I helped him out take the 12 volts from the map dome light of the car. Everything went fine.
Afterwards he started driving the car, and functionality started going down, he had no turn light signals, the stereo stopped working till the next day the car didn't turn on anymore.
Well I came up to the conclusion after talking with ppl in the area peugeots 206 have a BSI controlled computer which controls the resistive load of all the circuits, and if you're actually driving more amperage from this line like was the case although the led strip didn't consume more then a couple milliamps the parasitic current loop return blown the BSI of the car.
Now I wanted to add some led strips to the parking lights of my 86 , and this guy who fixes the BSI's says cars which come with leds by factory default, do come with their ECU's designed to tolerate these fluctiations in their circuits so everything works fine.
If you change a bulb with a led one , you're in the most common scenario where you could blow the ECU/BSI of your car cause of these parasitc currents not being absorbed by the leds ( usually the case where the leds flicker) .
So this guy told me it's possible to add leds to our cars but adding some sort of isolation of the leds from the cars circuit , with some optocouplers or drivers without getting within the circuit of the car itself.
Can anyone please lead me a hand in here. about this.
The person I installed the led strip on her 206 peugeot I took the voltage form the map light with a normal stereo jack cable , which I supposed wasn't going to add any resistive load, aside from that the led strip wouldn't be driving more than a couple milliamps. But then strange things started happening she lost functionality on turn lights, stereo stopped working. And now well she took the car to an electrician and he said it's mostly the BSI (body system integration something lke that).
He checked the pulse exciting the cars alternator coming from the BSI and it's not there. When I connected the cables on the light bulb from the map light accidentall there was a short but I changed the fuse and that was it, nothing else. But eventually something might have happened on the BSI cause that's happening.
Now going back to my car a Toyota FT 86 (Subaru BRZ). I was thinking on adding some led strips on the parking lights, these lights turn on whenever I turn on the lights from the instrument panel which you can dim. So I asked most of the ppl and they said nothing should happen about blowing the fuse cause the led strips would drive a couple milliamps. But ... But.. I'm starting to think it twice after what happened to this other car. Like what if .. these leds start to flicker or anything else. These are the ones I bought
http://www.amazon.com/White-Vehicle-Strip-Flexible-Waterproof/dp/B00ARYTBFY/What do you recommend me ?
This is the light bulb I'm talking about .. I want to replace on my car with a led strip. This bulb lights up when I turn on the backlight on the instrument panel , and it's got a dimmer to regulate the intensity.
This happened to a guy who tried to replace the stock bulbs on door courtesy lights with LEDS on subaru BRZ forum
Well it is official. LEDs fried my BIU
LEDs require put a lower resistive load on the circuit, which means a higher current than intended reaches the BIU, (Computer that controls many electronic functions that are on switches/timers etc) and consequently fried it.
My dealer has been kind and said he'd give me a good faith warranty replacement on the dealer's dime since I purchased my BRZ there, but Subaru as a company does not acknowledge the issue. (this fault was caused by non-OEM parts which voids their coverage)
If you put LEDs in your courtesy door lights on a limited BRZ, you run an almost guaranteed chance to fry your BIU!
Dealer quoted $500 for BIU plus labor just FYI.
Q: So, you might ask "why have I seen others with working LEDs in their doors?"
A: I believe some are using a bulb with a ton of LEDs (read:6 or more) which is not allowing as much current to pass through. I cannot garuntee this nor will I ruin my new BIU to try this, so I will stick to the advice that nobody should put LEDs in their doors period.
DO NOT PUT LEDs IN YOUR DOOR LIGHTS!