need resistors?

[1990LTD]

My gauges have eaten 3 bulbs.


There are two bulbs in my old Stewart Warner gauge pod, and one in my Sunpro II tach..I've had the tach almost as long as I've had the car (around a year now) but the gauge pod only a few months.


I used little 3-way 74 LED bulbs. A week or two ago one of them in the gauge pod started flickering, then the other one the next day. Taking it apart you can see one or more of the lights flickering while the other stays solid. Same thing happened to the light in the tach today.



My theory is that it's because of where I'm tapping in for 12v to power the lights sending MORE than 12v to the gauges and the little bulbs can't take it, while the stuff on those circuits can (ie: DRLs). I'm getting power for both from the fuse box but not from the same fuse.


what say you? take power for both gauges from the same circuit and set up a resistor so the bulbs don't fry again?

[FatNasty]

Might just be that they are cheap,crappy, or defective bulbs. My system is almost 15 volts and i've never had any of my 10+ little 5 way led's go out.

[1990LTD]

True. I honestly don't remember if I got all of the bulbs from the same seller or not. I'll try some new ones to see if the problem reappears.

[FatNasty]

I've always bought my LED's on ebay from this seller
I didn't see the exact ones i have on there, but they probably have an upgraded version now. Despite being chinese, they seem better than the ones you can get at part stores with the colored bases.

[85crownHPP]

yep - he's the guy I got my good 5 'star' LED 194's from... but I dont see any of that style listed anymore.

[gadget73]

Are you tapping straight 12v, or are you using the instrument lighting circuit? Tap the light circuit if you havent, its lower voltage and you can control it.

[1990LTD]

Straight 12v. Going to tap the dash light power - do I just test each wire going to the cluster with a multimeter to see which is for the lights?

Or would one of you good folk happen to know which is the one controlled by the dimmer? Would be easier to run the wires in to the cluster (behind it since there's space on either side) than yank out the light switch.

[87gtVIC]

Just wrap a wire around the fuse for the headlights in the fuse box.

[gadget73]

there should be a fuse in the instrument panel that has dimmer voltage. Look in the owners manual and find out what fuse controls it, and verify that its variable with a test light. Fords may be different, but thats how the Lincolns are wired, and its where I tapped power for my gauges.

[87gtVIC]

What Thain said is what I meant.