Led switchbacks installed as DRL and regular Parking/Turns
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Led switchbacks installed as DRL and regular Parking/Turns
I bought some Led switchback type 1 bulbs and I wanted to utilize the white leds as DRL but still have yellow light when the parking lights were on and maintain the turn signal capability. So after a 2 days and several trips to radio shack I was able to do just that. I first wired the white leds to an ignition source and wired that up to a relay that was controlled by the parking light so when the parking light came on it would switch off the power to the white leds and then the parking light would turn on the yellow leds. That part was easy.
The difficult part was then getting the yellow leds to work as both parking lights and turn signals with or without the parking lights being on. In theory this part only needs one relay.
I used this as reference http://www.the12volt.com/relays/page5.asp#pts but modified it so that the parking light is wired to 87a and the turn signal is wired to 87 as well as 86. That way when the turn signal is off the leds are powered by the parking light and when the turn signal is on the leds are powered by the pulsing turn signal and the capacitor is holding the circuit closed for the duration.
It worked great when I tested it using a 12v battery and a circuit tester, however when I hooked it up to the car it would flash once then the power from the turn signal went out. I'm not sure why this was happening and I used Diodes to isolate everthing but for the life of me I couldn't figure out why this was happening.
Anyways I ended up adding another relay to replace the turn signal power and that worked. I wired the extra relay to ignition power and used the existing turn signal power to then pulsate the power coming from that relay out to the parking/turn signal relay with the capacitor. The only drawback with this is that it doesn't work when the ignition isn't on so when you lock or unlock the car the turn signal doesn't flash. I'm sure I can figure a way around that as well but I wanted to give my brain a rest lol.
It works perfectly when the parking lights are on, however, when the DRL lights are on the capacitor isn't holding the circuit closed long enough so it switches back to white for second before going to yellow again. Not sure why but I'm sure if I put a larger capacitor in there it will fix that. Anyways here is a video of what it looks like.
The difficult part was then getting the yellow leds to work as both parking lights and turn signals with or without the parking lights being on. In theory this part only needs one relay.
I used this as reference http://www.the12volt.com/relays/page5.asp#pts but modified it so that the parking light is wired to 87a and the turn signal is wired to 87 as well as 86. That way when the turn signal is off the leds are powered by the parking light and when the turn signal is on the leds are powered by the pulsing turn signal and the capacitor is holding the circuit closed for the duration.
It worked great when I tested it using a 12v battery and a circuit tester, however when I hooked it up to the car it would flash once then the power from the turn signal went out. I'm not sure why this was happening and I used Diodes to isolate everthing but for the life of me I couldn't figure out why this was happening.
Anyways I ended up adding another relay to replace the turn signal power and that worked. I wired the extra relay to ignition power and used the existing turn signal power to then pulsate the power coming from that relay out to the parking/turn signal relay with the capacitor. The only drawback with this is that it doesn't work when the ignition isn't on so when you lock or unlock the car the turn signal doesn't flash. I'm sure I can figure a way around that as well but I wanted to give my brain a rest lol.
It works perfectly when the parking lights are on, however, when the DRL lights are on the capacitor isn't holding the circuit closed long enough so it switches back to white for second before going to yellow again. Not sure why but I'm sure if I put a larger capacitor in there it will fix that. Anyways here is a video of what it looks like.