led

I really need some help! I installed 4 leds in the interior of my car. They look great, but when I have the headlights on, the leds won't light. Also, when the leds are on and the headlights turn on, the leds turn off. I wired the + and - to the + and - leads behind the stereo. Any ideas on where I went wrong? Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

What you might try to do is run a 12V+ to the radio fuse and Ground to the Frame or the Ground to the Radio.Steve

Music Mart

Installer

It is an 87 Firebird. The live wire from my battery is orange in that year and make and the ground is brown. They are currently hooked into the main power supply from the battery to the radio in the console. I may try to hook them into the fuse for the radio like suggested above, but if that won't work I may have to run a line from the battery to power them. I never thought I'd have this much trouble with these lights. If they didn't look so good when lit, I'd scrap the whole project!

It is an 87 Firebird. The live wire from my battery is orange in that year and make and the ground is brown. They are currently hooked into the main power supply from the battery to the radio in the console. I may try to hook them into the fuse for the radio like suggested above, but if that won't work I may have to run a line from the battery to power them. I never thought I'd have this much trouble with these lights. If they didn't look so good when lit, I'd scrap the whole project!

I also wanted to mention that I hooked the + into the orange, and the - into the brown so they are both hooked up directly behind the radio. I had a difficult time finding a place to ground them without hooking into the -. Could this be the problem?

I believe that the leds have built in reistors since they came assembled with the black wrap up by the led itself and had wires running from it. Could I possibly need to a resistor to restrict the amount of power that the leds are receiving from the battery? The only thing that I can come up with is that the 4 leds are getting the full 12 volts of power from the battery, and that when I turn them on it's either the headlights or the leds. Any ideas?

no - you hooked into the backlighting lead on the radio instead of ground. this lead (brown) is active high, which means that when the headlights are off, the backlighting on the radio is off, and the wire is grounded. but when the headlights are on, the backlighting on the radio is on, and the lead is connected to +12v. if you wanted the LEDs on only when the headlights are on, you need to connect the + to the brown lead and the - to the chassis ground (any black wire). if you want the LEDs on all the time, you keep + on the orange (assuming that it is run hot) and hook the - into the chassis ground (or any black wire)

I apologize - the ground wire is black, not brown. It does appear to be the ground wire. It's grouped in the wires with the orange from the battery. I'm sorry about the confusion.

I also wanted to add the specs of the lights: 12V LEDs, current draw is 30 ma for each LED, .03 amps at 12V, 33 LEDS per amp. I hope this helps.