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Electric trickery conundrum


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One of the first jobs to do this year is to change out all the interior lamps for led. Sourced all required items and replace all of them without problems apart from glove box, passenger footwell and drivers footwell. This is where problems started to mount up. Well here goes........ fitted new led lamp in glove box,this flashed on momentarily and stayed off, swapped back to original lamp and still nothing ( this lamp is ok ), both footwell lights at this stage are still ok. Next tried passenger footwell, same problem after changing lamp to led ...... nothing. Hmmm now slightly puzzled, decided to change the drivers footwell lamp to led and same problem......... nothing. All the original incandescent lamps test out ok and when refitted don't work. Haven't had time to start testing yet so was just trial and error yesterday. Haven't got a wiring diagram yet so was wondering if there is a controll unit for these three interior lamps and this is at fault ? Sorry for this being a bit long winded, just difficult to explain. Won't get chance to investigate any further until the week end. Any ideas guys and girls would be much appreciated.

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20 hours ago, Beanoir said:

Obvious question maybe, but have you checked you haven't blown a fuse?  

 

This has got @Bushman written all over it, what do you think Steve? 

Would agree that a fuse is the obvious solution but looking at fuse booklet there doesn't seem to be a single fuse for the footwell and glove box lamps and all the other interior lights are ok. 

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It might be worth checking the vehicle side of the lamp connectors too, see if they are still putting out 12 volts?  LEDs can have quite high inrush current, so it may be that they've used part of the loom as a fuse...

 

Joe.

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3 hours ago, 11891952 said:

It might be worth checking the vehicle side of the lamp connectors too, see if they are still putting out 12 volts?  LEDs can have quite high inrush current, so it may be that they've used part of the loom as a fuse...

 

Joe.

Thanks Joe, will have to wait till the week end to have a bit more of a poke about, not sure what you mean About "used part of loom as a fuse" guessing you mean the 12v supply cable is open circuit/burnt out etc.

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thanks Nick. first shout must be to check all the fuses in the drivers footwell fusebox. ( you'll need to be a contortionist and have a torch handy)

LEDs themselves are polarity sensitive but the bulb units should not be. if the fuses are all ok ( on the inner face of the fusebox lid, you should find a legend to help you identify circuits) a voltage check on each bulb holder terminal is next. typically these circuits always have a live + feed at all times and the switching is on the earth side, IE when the lamp is lit, the switch has completed a circuit to ground ( chassis) a multi meter set to DC should pick up 12v on the red probe of the meter if the black lead is firmly connected to chassis. the latchbar hoop on the door frame that the door lock latches on to is a good point, you must carefully probe both terminals of the bulb holder one at a time to see if you have a good working circuit. I find it hard to see that you suddenly have multiple faults, so the most likely common point is the fuse.

if the circuit is good and the original bulbs work, try re installing the LED bulbs one at a time, if they don't light, pull them out and turn them round and plug em back in to see if they are polarity sensitive. hope this helps, let us know. cheers. good luck. Steve.

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Thanks Bushman great reply. It's the way in which they failed confused me, if they all failed at once when first lamp changed then yes a fuse is almost the lightly candidate, as they failed one at a time each time a lamp was changed then.......hmmm.  Checked original lamps and leds in the boot light and all ok. What I didn't say in OP was that I did check fuses ( but only visually ) haven't checked them for continuity with meter yet. Weather and time permitting will be digging deeper this weekend. Managed to find some wiring diagrams so this should help etc.

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