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LED lighting for license frame

11K views 32 replies 15 participants last post by  2000_328ci 
#1 ·
Sorry if this has been addressed before, but I couldn't find anything relevant in the search topics -- at least under the P38 category.

Has anyone retrofitted LED's for the small bulbs that illuminate the license frame in the back underneath the trunk section? It would seem like a fairly easy swap, and it makes a pretty nice difference from what I have seen on other vehicles.

Thanks.
 
#3 ·
I think it will bring up a bulb failure alarm. That's why mine are taped over with black electrical tape - the number plate is on the rear bar and not on the tailgate as it would be obscured by the spare wheel carrier if left in the original position.
 
#4 ·
I did it with all my lights. :D
Unfortunately as P38rover says you get bulbfailure alarm, so I changed
them back again, except for the rear numberplate ones and interior. I dodn't
mind the alarm too much, it's offset by the bright white cones of light
rather than a dull glow.
I was thinking of doing the puddle lights in the doors as well, but can't get the
**** things out. :x
For the interior I went with an amber colour. The amount of light is very good
from the LED's I got and you don't ruin your 'nightvision', plus they complement
the tan leather I have.
 
#5 ·
Well I went ahead and ordered a pair -- they were really cheap, so I might as well test it out.

There has got to be someway to either disable the bulb failure alarm or get some kind of special resistor that won't trip it.
 
#6 ·
tjh2dUVA said:
There has got to be someway to either disable the bulb failure alarm or get some kind of special resistor that won't trip it.
No. The bulb failure alarm appears to work by monitoring current drawn. A LED has less draw so it will look like a failed bulb. To overcome that you will need to put a low-value resistor in parallel with the bulb so it draws more current. The cheapest low value resistor that will handle the current without overheating would be a....... bulb.
 
#7 ·
The LED bulbs came in the mail a few days ago and I hooked them up. The install was fairly straight forward. The only issue was that the bulbs themselves have about 9 mini LED bulbs in them. The entire bulb housing was just slightly too large to fit in the factory casing hole, so I had to kind of rig it into place with some electrical tape. At any rate, they look much better. They are super bright, white lights. The beam can even be seen on the ground. It is a night and day difference between the crappy tungsten ones. I have had them in for several days now and have had no Bulb Failure warnings. I have turned the lights on and off numerous times to see if I could trip it, and nothing. These lights may not be wired to alert for failures. If anyone else is interested, the lights I got were JDM T15 xenon white LED 2825.




Sorry for the poor image quality. Even with my sub-par photography skills, you can immediately tell a big difference.

Thanks.
 
#8 ·
The lamps you bought obviously draw enough current for the system to not detect a bulb failure.

I do have to ask, though, why do you want your number plate brilliantly lit?
 
#9 ·
Well it's not that I want my license plate brilliantly lit, I just can't stand the burnt amber color of the light produced by the tungsten bulbs.

It's purely an aesthetic thing, most likely due to owning a newer Rover with the crisp white/blue light band produced by xenon bulbs. I just like the color of light better.

If I can figure out a way to turn on my fog lights independent of having the headlights on, I want to swap out at the H3 bulbs for some high-powered SMD LED panels. Due to their longevity, they can be used as daytime running lights and produce a virtually equivalent light color as true HID xenons. Since the fog lamps have a clear lens where bulb shines through, it would seem to be viable option, unlike the main beams which have the casing with prisms for halogen bulbs.
 
#11 ·
P38arover wrote:

I do have to ask, though, why do you want your number plate brilliantly lit?
The answer relates to matters "in camera" .... :shock: :lol: :lol: :lol:
 
#12 ·
Hoges said:
P38arover wrote:

I do have to ask, though, why do you want your number plate brilliantly lit?
The answer relates to matters "in camera" .... :shock: :lol: :lol: :lol:
That's why mine is barely legal - maybe it's not even that.
 
#13 ·
I don't think that the license plate lights are set to the bulb failure warning. Unless if only 1 of the 2 is blown it still draws enough for the failure not to warn. I found this out when I had my car taken for inspection. The shop charged me $4 for the bulb and $10 to put the bulb in. Only 1 blown, couldn't convince them to let me out since it still has one. All else was great.
 
#14 ·
q-rover said:
I was thinking of doing the puddle lights in the doors as well, but can't get the **** things out. :x
After reading this thread I started wondering about putting LED bulbs in my puddle lights too - I got hold of 2 from Halfords (UK parts store place) for a ridiculous price of £9.72p just as a little experiment.

Got home and put them in and the difference was amazing, the ground is very well lit when opening a door now whereas before I sometimes couldn't even tell I had puddle lights!

I have since done a bit of research on-line and found the Ultraleds.co.uk do some interesting LED bulbs for cars at a more reasonable price so have ordered a few as more of an experiment to see what those bulbs are like - they even do bulbs for the dash etc (the little wedge base one) AND they do ones which would fit the HeVAC unit (im not going for blue colours or anything, just the original green colour). As said, I have some on order so will post back with results, they will probably look awful :lol:

Lastly, to get the puddle lights out, get a small flat blade screwdriver, like a jewellers one and push it into the edge of the lens on the puddle light, push hard and the screwdriver will slot in between the lens and the rubbery plastic housing of the light. Once in, lever the lens out and then that will allow you to squeeze the body of the puddle light itself on different sides so you can pull it out of its hole. Took me a few mins to get the first one out but once you get the technique its easy, I had the other side changed in less than a minute!

-Wills :)
 
#15 ·
99p38a said:
I don't think that the license plate lights are set to the bulb failure warning. Unless if only 1 of the 2 is blown it still draws enough for the failure not to warn.




But you are right, A single bulb failure won't bring up the warning. I tried it tonight.
 
#16 ·
Yes,
I noticed 1 license plate light bulb out this evening for real and no warning on the information display- I have spare bulbs but I could consider an led one.....
 
#18 ·
Well Ive been away for a few days but while I was away my new LED lights arrived from that Ultraled place. Am going to fit them tomorrow but this is what they look like. They are described as Xenon White and they each have 9 LED's on. I have just tested one with a 9-volt battery and it lights up really well.

Will get them fitted tomorrow and post some pics or something. I am probably going to experiment a little and try them in different places around the vehicle as well, see how they look as sidelights, number plate lights, high level stop lamps, footwell lamps and then replace the existing 4 LED bulbs in the puddle lamps with them to see the difference, will see how it goes let people know my finding about whether it sets off any bulb warnings.



-Wills :)
 
#19 ·
ok, well just finished testing these things out, first thing is that they are bright and work really well, that is they seem to give a good spread of light rather than being very directional.

Annoyingly thats where their greatness ends :(

I tried them in the sidelights, they fit perfectly, slot through the hole in the back of the headlight perfectly and all was great until I came to switch them on and then I got the bulb failure warning :( Fiddled around, made sure they were fully in and everything but nope, bulb warning remained and that was that. While they were in though they lit up the headlights properly much like the standard bulbs. Im wondering whether Ultraleds most powerful, 15-led bulb would work and not set off the bulb warnings?? Not sure, but they definitely look good but I personally can't live with the bulb warning messages and I don't want to go modifying the wiring too much for the sidelight.

I then tried them around the back in the high level stop light, complete non-starter. They fit the black holder's perfectly but as you try and slot them into place the hole for them just isnt quite large enough. The lights are just a mm or so wider than the standard bulb and this was stopping them from going in.

Next came the number plate lights - they fitted into the holders fine and I turned on the lights and had silence, NO bulb warning messages here - hooray I thought, BUT, came to put the bulbs into the number plate lens fixture thingy and this time the bulbs were just a mm or so too long :( So annoying because they fitted the holders fine, didn't set off the bulb warning and all looked great. Again, with a small bit of modding you could probably make them fit but I dont like doing that.

Lastly came the puddle and footwell lights, AGAIN, they were just a tiny bit too long to fit which was annoying.

So that was my experience of these bulbs. Trying not to be negative I think that they are pretty well made pieces of kit its just a shame about the size of them. By far the most annoying part of the whole little exercise of changing the bulbs around was the fact that the sidelights gave a failed message whereas the number plate bulbs didn't. I guess there is a slightly different circuit setup for monitoring the rear number plate lights than there is for the front sidelights. I may try getting the 15-led bulbs at some point in the future for my sidelights but not at the moment so anyone who wants to grab some let me know your experience!

For now the bulbs I have got have gone into my sisters car which has no bulb warning systems :lol:

-Wills :)
 
#20 ·
Hi Wills,

I might be wrong but I don't think that the number plate lights are on the warning system. I had a dodgly bulb installed that needed a tap every now and again to get to light up. No warning. It eventually gave up the ghost and still no warning. My warning system might be on the fritz but I don't think so as a trailer I recently towed with dodgy wiring caused the warning system to go into over time. Once unplugged everything went back to normal.

Try the number plate lights without a bulb and see if you get a warning message that would be the real tester.
 
#22 ·
It's not a problem anymore with all those W5W leds with no error or canbus on ebay. I have some in the sidelights and licence plate lights and they work perfectly.
 
#23 ·
996TURBO said:
It's not a problem anymore with all those W5W leds with no error or canbus on ebay. I have some in the sidelights and licence plate lights and they work perfectly.
Just Ordered and installed the canbus LED'S from ebay NO problems or error lights.
 
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