License Plate LED lights repair saving $400+
Failed rear license plate lights. Got an estimate of $500 AUD to replace them. You have to buy a new harness for about $300 plus about $200 for installation in Australia. Repair including a new wiring harness including reversing camera wiring and that makes installation more complicated. I wasn't going to pay that absurd price so I went about trying to fix it myself.
I reasoned that since the reversing camera still worked fine then the power supply must be ok. I found you can buy a pair of new LEDs on eBay for about $22 so I ordered them. I thought because the power supply was ok the fault must be with the LEDs themselves or their sockets. When the new LEDs arrived they didn't work so I strongly suspected the corroded looking sockets.
Sorry I didn't get any photos as I went.
The tricky part was figuring a way to by pass the old sockets to make new connections to the LED pins which are tiny and surrounded by plastic case. I found I could slide the pvc sheath of the end of new wire onto each pin after warming with a hair drier. It wasn't easy and I had lots of trial and error before finding the best wire for this. To decide polarity I examined each old socket and identified red into one side of the LH socket. On the RH socket I found a black.
The LEDs could only fit one way into the old sockets so I scratched the corresponding + and - on each new LED marked L or R.
I slid new wires onto each LED pins as described above. It was impossible to solder these onto the pins so I just sealed the new wire connections inside each LED in situ using a hot melt glue gun. The protruding wires could now be connected to input power to the LH +ve and out through the -ve . A common wire connected the other two pins to make the LEDs in series as per original LEDs.
They didn't work this way.
After more trials I found they would work individually so I just connected them in parallel instead and they work fine.
They are very bright so I hope the parallel connection isn't overloading them. They did not blow immediately so I am hopeful they will continue to work and if so the hot melt glue should protect connections from corrosion. If they do blow too quickly I will have to try figuring out some resistor to add in series with the input power to the next LED replacements. Still a big cost saving.
I reasoned that since the reversing camera still worked fine then the power supply must be ok. I found you can buy a pair of new LEDs on eBay for about $22 so I ordered them. I thought because the power supply was ok the fault must be with the LEDs themselves or their sockets. When the new LEDs arrived they didn't work so I strongly suspected the corroded looking sockets.
Sorry I didn't get any photos as I went.
The tricky part was figuring a way to by pass the old sockets to make new connections to the LED pins which are tiny and surrounded by plastic case. I found I could slide the pvc sheath of the end of new wire onto each pin after warming with a hair drier. It wasn't easy and I had lots of trial and error before finding the best wire for this. To decide polarity I examined each old socket and identified red into one side of the LH socket. On the RH socket I found a black.
The LEDs could only fit one way into the old sockets so I scratched the corresponding + and - on each new LED marked L or R.
I slid new wires onto each LED pins as described above. It was impossible to solder these onto the pins so I just sealed the new wire connections inside each LED in situ using a hot melt glue gun. The protruding wires could now be connected to input power to the LH +ve and out through the -ve . A common wire connected the other two pins to make the LEDs in series as per original LEDs.
They didn't work this way.
After more trials I found they would work individually so I just connected them in parallel instead and they work fine.
They are very bright so I hope the parallel connection isn't overloading them. They did not blow immediately so I am hopeful they will continue to work and if so the hot melt glue should protect connections from corrosion. If they do blow too quickly I will have to try figuring out some resistor to add in series with the input power to the next LED replacements. Still a big cost saving.