Wipac LED light conversion

Hello Guys

Looking for a bit of help, i've recently converted the side lights and indicators to the Wipac LED conversions.

Problem im having is all of a sudden the right indicator when put on is turning the hazards on.

Left is fine but the right just goes to hazards

youve got a short, with the leds it needs hardly any power at all to power the lights. With filament bulbs a short might not pass sufficient current to light the bulb.

Ive got the exact same problem. I need to go through all the wiring and check theres not a wire rubbing on the chassis or something somewhere.

A possible reason for this is voltage leaking across the dash indicator tell tale bulb. The bulb is connected to both sides of the indicator wiring, but the resistance of normal bulbs means the leaked voltage isn't enough to light them. Did you fit resistors in series with the indicators? Try taking the dash tell tale bulb out. If this cures the fault, you need to either fit resistors to the bulbs, of put a couple of diodes into the tell tale wiring to prevent leakage.

The Wipac LEDs should not need resistors as its all built into the housing. They aren't your run of the mill LED bulbs off ebay, its the whole light.

I fitted Wipac units, and needed the diodes in the tell tale circuit.

how did you do this zeaphod?

wipac didnt need any diodes in in my 200 tdi loom. worked just fine once i worked out the loom from autosparks had the green/black wired the wrong way round to the fittings .

you have stuck in the adjustable flasher unit right ?

Have a look here, if you need to do this. https://www.landyzone.co.uk/land-rover/has-anyone-ever-diodes-in-the-indicator-circuit.273205/
I did fit the "special" relay, but as it came in a blue box it may have been faulty. However, the indicator wiring is definitely joined at the dash tell tale, so without a resistor or diode in the circuit, there may be leakage. Maybe my Wipac units didn't have resistors build in?

Ok simple way to sort this.... Remove the tell tall light and see if the issue goes away. If it does then you have a fault with the tell tale. This is a fault that does affect some cars and not others. There is an easy way to sort it and that is to fit 2 diodes into the wiring...... To do this locate the left indicator and right indicator tell tale wires behind the dash.

Diodes pass current in the direction of the arrow in the circuit OR for a physical diode towards the line.

So get your two diodes and connect one each to the two tell tale wires with the line AWAY from the wires. (You can either crimp the wire directly to the lead of the diode or solder it. I normally cut the lead wire down to about 1.5cm (only on that side) and solder it then slide a sleeve of heat shrink 3cm longer than the body of the diode over it and down the wire.. With this done you should now have the two tell tale wires with a diode attached and heat shrink down their wires. Next job is to solder the two remaining lead wires together and attached about 20cm of wire to them. Now pull the heat shrink over the two diode and shrink it. Now pull another piece of heat shrink down the wire so that it covers everything and shrink that......

You now have the two tell tale wires going to one wire via the diodes and it should be a nice neat job. The 20cm wire now goes to the tell tale bulb and will light up if EITHER indicator is on OR both.

Oh and the diode doesn't really matter too much. 1N4148 1N4001 etc all work fine and cost peanuts.....

Exactly what I did - photos on my thread

zeaphod said:

Exactly what I did - photos on my thread

Click to expand...

Doh.... I went into the thread then answered the door, made a brew and got generally tied up. Then picked up the laptop and typed out my reply

so what is the fault in the tell tail ?

why does it only effect some vehicles ?

top drive said:

so what is the fault in the tell tail ?

why does it only effect some vehicles ?

Click to expand...

It could be a batch difference in the flasher module, one of the bulbs or wiring. To find the issue would likely be far more hassle and doing the above trick with the LEDs is a permanent fix.

The tell tale is just a bulb wired to earth. It is connected to both sides of the indicators. With normal bulbs, the small amount of current leaked through the tell tale is not enough to light the opposite indicator, but with LED units, much less current is required, so they light up. If a resistor is fitted in series with the LED, this mimics the effect of a normal bulb.

interesting,.

when mine did this(i have the wipac led kit) all i did was install good quality earths points at each corner. - in the form of an earth strap to the chassis bolted through something steel using the bolt as a stud to fit all the earths too.

Mine are wired with the earths coming back into the central earth points on each wing. These were all renewed.

The way the system is designed (at least on my 1985 90"), there will always be a little bit of leakage through the tell tale. It doesn't matter with normal bulbs.

guess they changed it on the 87 model then as i certainly didnt **** about with putting resistors in .....

Interesting, someone has suggested that some of the Wipac units have built in resistors. That would mean you wouldn't need to add anything else to the system.

am i right in thinking the Tell tail light is the bulb behind the dash board that comes on dull when i indicate right and it faults to hazards?