3rd brake light

[ahardb0dy]

Took my 3rd brake light apart to see if it had bad bulbs as it wasn't working. Did not realize it had all those LEDs in it. So unplugged the light and checked for power on the truck side and it had power. Took the light into my shed and took it apart to find those 2 rows of leds, hooked it up to m power supply and all but 8 leds worked, messed around with some of the solder joints and 4 leds on the ends came on but still had a group of 4 out right in the middle. Noticed each group is fed through a resistor.

 

Determined the value of the resistor and went to radio shack but they didn't have the exact value resisor so I picked a package up that was slightly higher value, when I got home I found some more resistors I had that were closer to the value of the one that the light had in it, unsoldered the one I thought was bad and put the new on in and the 4 leds in the middle still didn't work. So I removed a working led from the end and one of the one's that wasn't working and swapped them. The one that was working didn't work in the middle but the one I thought was bad worked on the end now!!, So I started re-soldering the LED connections and turned the power supply off than back on and they all worked!! Re-glued the red cover on using crazy glue and ty wrapped it together to hold it tight, will try it back in the truck tomorrow and hopefully it will still work.

Edited December 24, 2010 by ahardb0dy

[unccpathfinder]

that sounds like a lotta work....

[nunya]

That's a whole lotta labor and agrivaton for a light (to me, I generally despise intricale electrical crap). Simpler/easier for me at least to keep working j/y spares layin around. Might get ambitious one day and 'play' with one...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Proably not

[JamesRich]

that sounds like a lotta work....

 

Not quite as much work as changing all the interior and wiring harness from one truck to another!

James

[ahardb0dy]

I thought it had regular bulbs in it, but once I saw it was LED's and they were all out, I figured it was very unlikely that all of them would have been bad, so I had to investigate. It really didn't matter if it worked or not but I had it apart and it took removing 14 screws to take off the body and strip it down to the circuit board so I just kept going, plus we had a whole houseful the last few days (14 people (2 men the rest women and young children), so a project out of the house was like therapy for a little while, LOL

 

I may look for a backup at the junkyard but this week a JY trip is not in the budget, and for giggles I looked the unit up online at a Discount Nissan site $268 discounted !!

[nunya]

Not quite as much work as changing all the interior

 

actually a complete interior swap from one truck to another is basicly a cake-walk and can be completly done with a couple sockets and a screw driver or 2...

[RedPath88]

Here is a little extra reading along the lines of repair/replacement

 

Ever wanted a brighter third brake light?

[ahardb0dy]

I went out to the PF to hook the light back up, plugged it in and it still didn't work, checked for power at the plug, this time with my multimeter because I thought maybe there wasn't enough voltage, but it was right at battery voltage, took the light back to my shed and hooked it to my power supply and it worked, so I knew now it was a ground problem. Cut the ground wire close to the plug and crimped a ring terminal to the end of the wire and screwed a self tapping screw under the hatch where the trim covers, stepped on the brake and it finally worked !! It's hard to see in the daylight but it's working, will check it out after it gets dark later.

[adamzan]

actually a complete interior swap from one truck to another is basicly a cake-walk and can be completly done with a couple sockets and a screw driver or 2...

Yeah I've done that before. Twice.