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Why are LED Dash lights flickering and going out?

13K views 5 replies 5 participants last post by  PsychoVan 
#1 ·
I've had LED instrument panel lights for a while in my 97 850 and my first set from v-leds worked well for a few months. One day when I turned on my car, the far left one started flickering and over the next few days, burnt out. This happened to all but one of four LEDs. Autolumination said that heat can cause LED failure, so I bought a new set of LEDs with heat sinks. Not 24 hours after I got them put in, part of my middle/left LED cluster started to flicker
. It's a real pain in the butt to keep changing these, and it's not even worth it to me if they don't last a day. Does anybody know what could be causing these to go bad, or better yet how to fix them?
 
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#2 ·
Re: Why are LED Dash lights flickering and going out? (PsychoVan)

Sounds to me like you have a short somewhere, but where I have no clue, sorry.
 
#3 ·
I to have changed to LEDs in both my 850s gauge clusters. one has been over a year and not a single problem and the other had been a pain. inthe 94 turbo the left led by the gas gauge would not light up and come on later in the drive and sometimes not at all. now it dosent work at all. havent felt like looking into it. too cold out. may be a short.
 
#5 ·
Where are you getting the LEDs from? Some LEDs don't have the correct voltage regulator and then tend to burn out very quickly. I always get my LEDs from SuperBrightLEDS.com and I have never had an issue with them.

It could also be an issue with the dimmer switch but that should not effect the LED if it is set at 100%.
 
#6 ·
Re: Why are LED Dash lights flickering and going out? (PsychoVan)

I got my first batch of LEDs from v-leds.com. They are a local (for me) business, so I figured I'd give them a shot. My second batch came from autolumination. I got all of my button lights from them and they've been fine. I talked to someone at v-leds about the failure and they said that it's often heat related. He suggested this type of LED: http://www.v-leds.com/Exterior....html My 2nd batch hasn't been as bad. The far right one went out, but I think it was because of the connection and only one of the four leds in the second-from-the-left pod went out.
 
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