Date:         Fri, 16 Jul 2010 10:27:32 -0700
Reply-To:     Alistair Bell <albell@SHAW.CA>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Alistair Bell <albell@SHAW.CA>
Subject:      curious behaviour of interior led lights
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed

Funny thing started to happen after I replaced the interior
incandescent lights with the led festoon lights from Van Cafe. I have
a delayed dim light unit at drivers side position which worked
flawlessly for a few months with the stock incandescents. But
recently I put in LED festoons in all 3 interior light spots (86
syncro 7 pass.). The delay dim feature still worked...most times. But
sometimes, and it seems more often to occur when a door is opened
when van running, the delay feature does not work. I do notice that
the lights dim a tad after 6 seconds (about the time when the lights
should go off after door closed), but do not go out. Well they do go
out after a few minutes, haven't had patience to time it.


It doesn't always happen, and it doesn't seem to be related to any
one door switch. I have checked the door switches/wires.

It might be just a coincidence with the light replacement or it might
be something to do with the electrical draw of the LEDs. But its hard
to figure out seeing as its intermittent.

Not a big problem, but an interesting one :)

alistair

PS the LED interior lights are a lot brighter. I especially like the
LED in the map light spot. At same time i popped in white LED lights
on dash. I like it, but to tell you the truth, they are not much
better than the home made LED lights I played around with years ago,
before these were on the market.