led third brake light relay

Oh boy - it's even later, and I've been depleted elsewhere. But I can safely agree/emphasise/reiterate what Howie II wrote - NEVER be embarrassed to ask. To quote one inspirational signature - "There is no such thing as a stupid question - only stupid answers." (I hope I got that right). As to Howie II's succinct translation of my last reply, I'll blame tiredness. (That's bullsh - it's a normal reply for me, but why should I be embarrassed because of my stupid answer? LOL. And I did reiterate my interpretation...) But for the benefit of my possible misunderstanding, do you still have the original brake bulbs as per "standard" with the LEDs? (Or have they been removed or substituted with LEDs?) FYI - I am suspecting my stupidity and reckon I'll confirm it later (it's now 4AM Zulu) after a reread, else some new dawning (ie, sunrise - ha ha). (But embarrassed, no.) Feel free to ignore this reply if redundant to too stupid. I'm off to bed. Big day with Mother tomorrow later. ( !!) PS - links don't work (at least for newbies?). But a plain-text link should be ok.

Well, my tail lights(stop, turn) are led. All worked well, until the addition of the led third brake light. Several years ago I tried a single led replacement for the filament bulb and this same scenario appeared. The tbl I have now is an led array versus a single bulb, but the result has been exactly the same. Hope you have a G'day with your Mother.Think ya' used enough dynamite there, Butch?

My own thought is the problem is with the CC, yet, they are a reputable company, have they come across this problem before and what's their answer. Adding LEDs should make no real difference to any circuit because their current drain is so small, don't forget also that a 12V LED will have a built in resister anyway.

Their first reply was that ,yes, there is a problem when an led is added. I thought it was just with the 2005 Scion xb and the led in the third brake light. I emailed Rostra a second time(after hours) and haven't yet received a reply. I have seen a lot of other posts from people who have installed Rostra kits on various other cars and some mentioned the relay fix for led brake lights. But, I never saw any follow-up postings either confirming or denying the fix. I appreciate from the bottom of my heart all of the replies. To me, Rostra needs to address this for me. And when I find out, I will most certainly post. I would think this to be a difficult endeavor for all of you anyway without a schematic of the Rostra unit to see where this violet wire goes and how it works..that's a Rostra concern. I will try a few things thanks to you guys and wait for the tech to respond. Thanks to all of you. BillThink ya' used enough dynamite there, Butch?

This is embarrassing to a degree. I was afraid I would burn something up, so I never tried hooking the oem filament bulb in parallel with the led array. I gave it a shot and it appears to work fine. Cruise turns on, holds speed and cancels with the brake. But I wonder why Rostra has this relay "fix" when simply attaching the old bulb seems to work fine? Anyway, thanks again for all of your inputs.Think ya' used enough dynamite there, Butch?

I'm not saying that this applies to Rocstra but come the recession, it's far easier to lay off field engineers with their attendant costs than sales and marketing. Result, more flaws, less customer services, silly fixes. Two massive car security companies merged about 10 years ago. Let's call them Alphaper and Betaford. Alphaper had software programmed via an eprom writer which was ironic because the owner of Betaford invented the eprom, Betaford meanwhile used a software programm which was far superior. The new owners got rid of Betaford's programmer which was a shame, it was far superior and guess what, ideally made for Win 98 and NT, it requires a serial port rather than USB and can't be upgraded. But hey, that's business and f***k you once you've bought it.

Meinnen Gott - went back to PROM writer?!!. Dare I suggest it was UV-EPROM?

bbstacker 7072 wrote: This is embarrassing to a degree...

Yes, indeed. But for Rostra!! After 5 hours sleep I thought I'd return to find my misreading. (Yes - I read your "all LEDs" reply before bed.) And your solution is what I would have directly suggested of I had realised all bulbs were REPLACED by LEDs - add back the bulbs or a bulb or smaller bulb (else maybe a high Wattage resistor). And IMO that is so obvious yet we've been reading "if a LED is added" as opposed to bulbs replaced and LEDs substituted. And what's this "do not let the violet wire see ground through the brake lights "?! Yet then they show a relay that connects the violet wire directly to ground! Geez - will that cause a fuse blow whereas through bulbs may not? In my first reply I aired doubts when I see certain things... FIGJAM again! I should sue Rostra for causing undue stress OR wasting my valuable time AND they should discipline or educate their technician(s) - though it might have been a great tech having a D'oh Day or experience. But I now view Rostra as just another "reputable company" that has gone bad. Don't trust their advice! And Bill, you have nothing to be embarrassed about - that's clearly Rostra's ownership. Even I feel vindicated IF I did miss a LATER no bulbs, all LEDs statement - IMO my original reply said it all. (My writing is a different issue!) This is akin to simple "hyper flashing" LED indicators - just add back the bulbs somewhere (else one 50W resistor, else two) or replace the flasher can or change its current sensing resistor, of just make your own 85cpm flasher (eg inverters or a 555 timer and (say) a 500mA or common 15A or 30A relay). That's a well known problem - not that it stops them trying to sell you expensive resistors (what a stupid waste!) or "special" flasher cans. I'm glad this was solved before my further research! IMO Rostra deserve a bluddy good rostral punch... Meanwhile the commercial world continues our devolution. PS - actually the webs is our devolution, commercial is our decline.

You know, after reading your's and howie II's last post, I looked again at the email from Rostra. I didn't notice this until you guys starting talking about getting rid of people are the real bread and butter of any organization: the people who get their hands dirty, not the guy on the top floor(my situation anyway). This is the title of the fellow who helped. I am not criticizing him, because he may have been the only person at work at 7:40pm on a Friday night. I believe he answered me the only way he could. This his title: Customer Service and Web Media Supervisor. I actually learned a little bit from all of you guys. Now, whether I'll remember it by morning is another story.Think ya' used enough dynamite there, Butch?

I certainly didn't mean to get rid of "the bread and butter", only the incompetents that cause so much trouble. As I suggested, if it was his bad day etc, then fine - not that that may be excusable, but IMO it is acceptable. As for cutting jobs, I have generally been in favor of top down. That's how things work - if you cut the foundations, everything topples. Cut the demand before you burn the fields. And ergo, that's what I reckon is happening today... cut and avoid training, cut wages, cut workers (without cutting workload else improving productivity), import "other" people, etc etc. Skills are supposedly improving get managers and execs are generally finding LESS people under them. Shouldn't that ratio be increasing? If that tech was undertrained, IMO that supports my rant above, or that management skills are dropping (didn't they know he was hopeless?) If he was overworked or covering another area, ditto - why wasn't the workload dropped. (Don't worry, I have dealt with many that think increased productivity occurs through increase hours (LOL - it almost always drops!); productivity is a ratio (work out to hours in), it is not the same as output. (Did you know England's GDP INCREASED when they were reduced to a 3 day week circa 1980? Yet here they'd like us to work 6 days...) As to people giving solutions they aren't knowledgeable in, I guess I merely lost a few hours, but you could have lost a life or a vehicle. Even qualified experts are sued for that. (Though for the under-qualified, there are certain legal outs else mitigators...)

Technically since our advice is free there is no legal obligation to anything we say, however wrong or outrageous. And we all know about MY comments regarding competence don't we. Pros will know exactly to whom Alphaper and Betaford refer. And that story I quoted was true, I've heard it from both sides of the Atlantic.