Turn Signal Flasher

[DaveyW]

I have a 1997 Winnebago on a Ford E series chassis. I replaced the taillight bulb with LED's and of course I got the fast blink problem with that. But when I installed an electronic flasher they wouldn't work at all. The new flasher info says it's LED compatible. Even when I put the original bulbs back in it still wouldn't work. I thought the flasher was bad, so I exchanged it but still nothing. Put the old flasher in and everything works, but of course fast when I put in the LED's.

How can I use LED's and get a normal flash rate without using the resistors across the light wiring?

[CowboyBilly9Mile]

If you had OEM the same flasher as the Rangers use OEM, then an EP27 will plug in and take care of hyperflash (ie, no resistors, no hacked wiring harness). This assumes, of course, that the LED's you have will work with your system.

As I've said in other posts and threads, each LED upgrade is a prototype. LED's with internal controllers that change the intensity of the all LED's don't always play nice with existing vehicle wiring (backfeed issues) and may need diodes (or try different LED's). Then there is the issue of brightness, not degrading the brightness output over the incandescent but not going too bright either. There is the issue of making sure that the turn/brake or turn are much brighter than just the tail or park (IIRC, incandescant is in the neighborhood of 27 and 300 lumens); beware of LED bulbs that light half of the LED's for tail or park lights and another half of the LED's for turn lights as these do NOT have good contrast and thus, are not especially visible when compared to the OEM incandescent. Then there is is issue of the light pattern as viewed from the rear, front and the rear sides if the tail lights deliver that light. This applies to park, tail, turn and the brake lights. There are, as expected, laws on this; as such and if you don't want to read deeply into them, to make sure you're on the straight and narrow (I did read them, yawn) then I would highly suggest that you compare, during the day and at night, the performance of a proposed LED on one side of the vehicle against that of an incandescent on the other. Which now goes back to what I said about each upgrade being a prototype. When shopping for them online (because many sellers have pics showing the light output) you take into consideration what I said above, think about the proposed LED specs, look at the light pattern, think about the assembly you want to put an LED in (really, they were designed for incandescent, not LED), give it your best shot, order and try. If it works, great! If not, evaluate and try another LED. After you experiment with LED's awhile, you will get a feel for the performance and results of different LED bulbs, the SMD's they use, the projector type, etc etc etc.

As can be seen, to do it right requires thought, effort and probably some trial and error. Figuring out what works on the first vehicle is where it's at, after that everyone else who wants to upgrade will have it made when you tell them what you used.

[DaveyW]

Well I checked and I see that the EP27 is a 5 pin flasher, so that won't work for me. Mine is a 3 pin.

The LED lights I have are plenty bright with good contrast between tail and signal. Better than the incandescants had. So I believe they will be OK if I can just get them to slow down.

[CowboyBilly9Mile]

I would look for a "no-load flasher" in the three pin version. This is exactly what the EP27 does other than it's five pin; you can pull all bulbs or add up to it's rated capacity, and the speed never changes.

[DaveyW]

The flasher I was trying to use is listed as "variable load". It is an EP-35 electronic LED compatible. Is that the same thing or is "no load" something different?

Of course my vehicle doesn't even work when I've got this one in. No signal lights at all. So obviously this one is not what I need.

[CowboyBilly9Mile]

I'm not familiar with an EP35 and I'd rather not speculate/guess on what they mean by variable load. But in my previous post, I did mention in my last post how an EP27 performs, you might want to test for the same result with the EP35.

[jebadiah04]

Try a no load flasher

[DaveyW]

I'll have to look for one. But now it's probably going to be a few days before I do. My schedule just went to @%(*$$%.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll work on this again when I get back to some free (??) time.