Well, I am not quite sure....
In my experiences with my LEDs EVERY time I have bought non Cbus LEDs they have started flickering and flashing after a few months, some even straight away....
About 2 months ago I decided to just check out the Cbus versions of the same LEDs and to my surprise not one has started flashing yet...


So this leads to my question, is it remotely possible that the 6th Gen Celica (Or maybe even the ADM version) has a canbus system? or have I just had a statistical anomaly lol

Canbus have more LED's therefore a more even distribution of the voltage to the LED's. In order to keep the LED's from blowing you have to wire in resistors in order to make up for the remaining voltage. Unless you happen to have the perfect amount of LED's with voltage that add up to the source voltage. Even then in most cases only through a combination or serial and parallel arrays and resistors will you get it matched. I've always wondered that about the bulb replacements that're offered, if they use a resistor in the base or just go with it and hope it doesn't blow within the return period.

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All the ones I have used have had a resistor in the base sheath....
The canbus LEDs supposedly have some other form of resistor compared with the non canbus systems so that the signals and fluctuations do not get to the actual LED....
I am really not sure about what has been happening with my LEDs or if it is just a complete coincidence and bad luck >.<


Also, the canbus LEDs are the EXACT same as my noncanbus, they just lack a plastic sheath and have a different type of resistor on them, the amount of LED's and the style of each are the exact same otherwise.

This post has been edited by rentaspace: Aug 8, 2013 - 10:50 PM

Hmmm.... All the towers I've seen have been CANbus... Where as the smaller ones weren't. From what I've found when a car has CANbus, it has sensors to determine if a bulb is good or not by resistance. Which would mean the CANbus LEDs have resistors in them to tell the car the bulb is still good. That also tells me that the other LED bulbs do not have a resistor in them(or it's the wrong value), as they throw the warning. By not having resistors added the LEDs are taking on too much voltage and are having their life shortened dramatically.

You could always do what I've started to do, just buy a pack of 100 LEDs off eBay for like $3 and make your own bulbs. Can get any resistors you'd need from eBay or local electronics store. I ended up doing the key ring, climate control, and door switch panels for my brother's Maxima for pocket change, where as it'd would have cost $20+ for the pre-made bulbs.

Here's a great calculator I've found that saves the trouble of doing all the math:
http://led.linear1.org/led.wiz

This post has been edited by Box: Aug 9, 2013 - 1:31 AM

Well all the LEDs that I have, small and large have some form of resistor.
The CANbus LEDs have an electronic resistor and the others just have your standard ceramic (or whatever it is) resistor...


Either way, I am probably going to look into making it myself, I am just so lazy when I have nothing to do and then the rest busy hahaha

I read the topic and for some reason I thought this:

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They must not be the proper value then. Which most bulbs in cars are 12V, so why they wouldn't go ahead and have the value set for that I'd never know. Worst case scenario the LEDs aren't quite as bright if they were plugged into a 9V (don't even know what car would, but still) harness.

It really is worth making your own, you save so much money. That and you can arrange them in ways that it better fits the application at hand.

Yeah mate, passenger side door keeps doin it to every LED i put in there. Only that socket though, 2 LEDs so far, flicker like a disco

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Actually I think there are two things that can cause this:
1) The surge of power when the car is turned on
2) The heat generated by the resistor which is then trapped by the plastic shroud.

Now looking over my old blown bulbs, it seems that the plastic shroud that covers the resistor actually causes the resistor to overheat and eventually fail.
Now, to try and figure this out, I went and looked in the inside of some of my old broken LEDs, and sure enough the inside of the shroud was discoloured, as if it had been heated up and when looking at the resistor it too had slightly singed.
So to rectify this, I would probably start disassembling the LEDs from the shroud so that they do not overheat.


Obviously again the cheapest method is to make them yourself as you suggested

I might start looking into it pretty soon as I am increasingly becoming more bored when I am not at work

Also, I am not sure about this as I have never measured the voltages with the car running, but once the engine is producing the power, doesn't it produce 13.9v or something like that, this could also explain why >.<

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This is probably what they were thinking when the named it canbus lol

This post has been edited by rentaspace: Aug 11, 2013 - 5:35 AM

I've never fried any LEDs and I don't have any flickering ones at all. Honestly LEDs shouldn't even be getting hot. They don't draw nearly enough power to be doing that. That's why if you put them in some cars that do bulb diagnostics (cbus) it'll tell you that bulb is out.

Think of it like this. If you throw a 35w bulb in 65w socket is it gonna pull 65w? No it'll pull 35 watts. 35w HIDs are plugged into 55w/65w sockets and they still only draw 35w. Now maybe if your car was throwing out too much amperage somehow or youre getting a really dirty power flow but that shouldn't be an issue cause you have fuses and the battery helps keep it a stable 12v system.

I think youre just overthinking it. If we had a cbus system for our lights wed have an error code for a bulb out. Cbus systems for lights just measure the power draw to the lights. If its not at the wattage specified, it sends the message "bulb out". That's why you have to get special ones for cars like that so they trick the car into thinking hey this bulb is drawing that amount of wattage. Putting bulbs with extra resistors and stuff like that in our car is a waste of money and power cause ours doesn't care as long as it doesn't exceed the fuse

I think you should be looking into your wiring (to make sure you don't have decaying wires causing dirty power flow) or the quality of the LEDs you bought.

This post has been edited by travisxcore: Aug 11, 2013 - 8:22 AM

You're right on wattage, it's only drawn as needed. The thing with voltage though is the device takes on the full load from the source. When making your own bulbs you have to dissipate the extra voltage so that it doesn't overload the LEDs. *insert voltage badger don't care meme here* As Travis alluded to that's also why you don't run a car without a battery, as then there's a significant load decrease on the alternator and voltage can surge up to 120V frying everything in the car that can't stand up to the spike. Had a genius do that after installing a new alternator on his car to "test out the new alternator" to see if it worked. It worked all right, fried every computer in the damn thing...wanted to slap him in the face... Anyhow the calculator I posted earlier makes it really easy to figure out what you have to do with the array, and resistance and wattage values. If you're going to go through the trouble of messing with pre-made bulbs you might as well make your own. What you said about the resistors being blown tells me they're just being cheap, and they didn't use a high enough wattage resistor to stand up to the current. Also generally a car with an alternator working at its best puts out 14.4-14.6V at idle. Though based on the earlier I just think it's really shoddy LED bulbs, as the CANbus are probably of higher quality anyhow and use the proper wattage on the resistors.

This post has been edited by Box: Aug 11, 2013 - 2:05 PM

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See I don't actually think they are bad quality, I think it is the fact that the car produces 14v instead of 12v. The extra voltage = more heat from the resistor. coupled with lack of airflow thanks to the plastic sheath the end result is they get too hot.
Most of the LEDs say: operating voltage 9-13v. and LEDs are notorious for burning out VERY quickly when they have even slightly too much voltage...

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Unfortunately, wattage and voltage are different. Yes an LED takes a hell of a lot less than an incandescent light in wattage terms, the difference is, the car produces 12 - 14v and that is what everything in the car HAS to use. The way they do this; resistors.
The LEDs themselves do not get hot at all, the resistor on the other hand is meant to get hot. Since it's job is to take the full 12v load and reduce it to the operating requirement of the LED/LEDs. Unfortunately, as box stated with Voltage, they don't 'take what they need' they have to take the full load because of Conservation of Energy, they cannot just 'discard' that energy to nothing, it has to go somewhere, and it does; heat from the resistor. As I am saying to box in this same reply, I think what has happened is that the car when idle is giving the LEDs resistor 14v+ which causes the resistor to get even hotter. Even a small change in voltage can result in an LED losing over two thirds of it's expected life.

And yes; I over think everything lol



This post has been edited by rentaspace: Aug 11, 2013 - 7:18 PM

When I make my bulbs I have it set for a 12.6V load. Though the LEDs I use are rated from like 3-5V each, so it's within range. The resistor burning out is a matter of wattage, voltage isn't going to hurt it as it'll just pass the power on to the LED's.

I've been drinking a lil bit so bear with me here-

Firstly I think youre mistaken on your terms.

Voltage is the pressure/force while current (amperage) is the amount of energy flowing. Wattage is both.
Formula wise W=V*A

So you stating the bulbs "use" 12 volts is incorrect. Voltage is just the potential energy pushed from point A-B [measured in joules per coulomb always flowing high to low].

Now voltage is a constant when it comes to cars as its stable enough system to call it a 12volt system. Otherwise I would have fried everything in my car, and so would everyone else. Because of this the only thing you need to worry about is amperage, which also isn't too big of a deal because of fuses. I believe the interior uses a 25amp fuse. So that's a total of 300 watts to be used on the inside of your car. Even after everything else that it powers, that's a **** ton of LEDs Speaking of LEDs, most LEDs operate from 9v-14.5v.

Also your car doesn't produce its max power at idle. The faster the alternator is spinning, the more current it puts out. I believe the max output is at like 4k iirc.

So like I said, you bought shotty leds. Either that or you have some horrifying electrical gremlins and I'd keep the power unplugged until you sort that out. Quit overthinking it man. Go buy some higher quality ones and be done with it.

I knew being an electrician for a couple months and that class back in highschool would pay off one day Also, Box come clean this up for me, and make it make more sense

This post has been edited by travisxcore: Aug 11, 2013 - 11:46 PM

Just based on the evidence I'm thinking it's due to the LED's not using the proper wattage on the resistors. Easy way to tell is replace the resistor with the same ohm rating, but with a 1/4W and I bet the bulbs work again. Especially since he hasn't had any problems with the CANbus LEDs, which are more expensive and one would think higher quality throughout. Being everything is fine with the CANbus LEDs I doubt it's his car. I still say just make your own, it is SO WORTH the effort. Save so much money, and you can make them perfect for every application. Key rings are a good example, can make a custom bulb so the ring is evenly lit around.

I remember a saying, "It's the amperage that kills". With electronics the higher voltage weakens the circuit causing arcing and therefore allows for more current to flow and then burn out whatever it may be. So with electronics I suppose you could say both voltage and amperage kills. This is also why people can send electricity from a Tesla coil through their body and light up a bulb in their hand and not die. High voltage, but low current. I have like two or three electrical engineering books around here somewhere, but everything is interconnected. If you're still worried about your car just test where the bulbs go in with a voltmeter/multi-meter.

I replaced the alternator in my brother's Maxima not too long ago, it had a spec sheet of the voltage at certain RPM's and I want to say around 5K it topped out.

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I don't think it's my car Well I do and I don't, I mean I think it is because they put out more than 12v. but, there is nothing wrong with that...


Anyway, I am going to start buying LEDs individually and using them anyway when I get the money to buy a bulk lot lol

Ehh, I think I ended getting 100 for under $3 shipped. More than enough to do the inside of your car.

I'm thinking about doing exterior lights now. Though would need quite a few more for that.

This post has been edited by Box: Aug 12, 2013 - 2:44 AM

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Australia sucks though for pricelol

They were off eBay from China.

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I'll order them but it will take like 3 weeks for them to arrive hahahah

Lots of stuff in this thread, but I deal with LEDs a lot. Canbus no way our cars have that system. CAN stands for controller area network, which basically means every single electrical component runs through a bus in the car. Wiring is a lot more complicated with this system. Door switches/locks everything goes through it.


As far as sizing resistors, you should size them for 14volts not 12. Really what you should do, is get a voltage regulator and run all the LEDs in parallel, then you'll have a constant voltage through the LEDs regards of what the battery voltage is.


Most single superbrights operate between 3.2-4 volts depending on specs/color. What I would do to make this type of stuff for car applications. Get a fairly high current voltage regulator, with a fixed output voltage of around 8-9 volts. Run in series off the regulator 2 LEDS + resistor (ohms depending on the working voltage of the led and voltage regulator picked). Then you can run as many of those as you want in parallel off your voltage regulator, up to the operating current of the regulator before needing another one.

This post has been edited by czwalga: Aug 12, 2013 - 7:03 AM

Some colours are 1.8V or so, but usually the listings on eBay are good about providing all of the specs you'll need. Hence the calculator I provided earlier, as it gives the optimum solution for whatever arrangement you're needing. A voltage regulator is a good idea for doing all of your LEDs in the dash/console. Might be harder to find a spot for it in other places though. Could always play it safe and spec it out to whatever your car reads at 3K RPM.

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You're correct, the standard LEDs are around 1.8. If you're going to do it might as well get the superbrights though haha.


You can wire the regulators in right where you tap the 12v source, so you will still be able to hide them. They aren't very big, size of a quarter at most.

Something like this, max output current of 1.5 Amps, which is a LOT of Leds.
http://www.newark.com/stmicroelectronics/l...ment%20Products

This post has been edited by czwalga: Aug 12, 2013 - 9:12 PM

For some reason when I think voltage regulator, I think of the huge ones used on old cars that didn't have them built into the generator/alternator.