I purchased some LED bulbs from Velocity LED’s off ebay. They looked like a quality product but I am having problems with them and not getting much help from the seller.

The bulbs are 7443 and I am installing them for brake/tail lights.

The problem is when they are installed I blow fuses. Depending on the orientation of the bulb in the socket I blow a fuse… either when the brake is depressed or when the headlights are turned on.

The last email the seller sent me said
“The only thing I can think of is it's blowing the fuses because of the low current draw. Load resistors would fix this. Sorry I work late hours and do not take phone calls.”

Now I’m not an electronics expert, but is that even possible? It seems like this would be due to some kind of short, Is there any way for me to test for this?

I’ve been pulling my hair out for about 2 weeks now and Ive been through about 15 fuses.

Any help would be appreciated!

 

short is my first thought also, try put'n your stock bulbs back in, if the fuse don't blow see if you can get you $$ back maybe ya just have a bad bulb. try this site for leds www.varad.com, i've bought tons of stuff from them and it's all A+ fast shipping also!! good luck

 

^^^^^yes, it is most likely a wire from the taillight housing has been accidently sliced and is grounding out on the frame.
The same thing happened to me. Take the housing out again and check all your wires. Let us know.

 

ok, heres the deal. i too had a set of these led bulbs. one circuit in the led bulb is wired in reversed polarity of what the scion tail light is. So when you hit the brakes it will work, but blow the fuse when the running lights are on. load resistors wont fix it since its a direct short. your only options are to rewire the tailight pigtail, or get the correct bulbs. i modded the wiring, but still wasnt impressed with the leds. stock bulbs were brighter.

 

jmseals and 1epoXyBox: The std bulbs work fine so I can assume the problem is only the LED's

randode: I'd like to verify what you are saying... This brand has an issue with the reversed polarity? And If I buy elsewhere I may not have the issue? I don't really want to alter the wireing for some janky LEDs.

Thanks for all your responses... I assume I will be looking for another vendor so I'd like to hear from others with LEDs that are working good.

 

yeah, the ones I got were from some guy on ebay. from what I have read, there are 2 styles. the regular ones that we had that dont work, or the kind with the reversed polarity on one circuit. I dont know how to tell if they will work without trying them and seing if they blow the fuse.

 

5C10N_DR1V3R: I got your PM.
What randode writes sounds right to me.

Problem with xB tail light bulbs is that they have 4 connections.Regular similar standard bulbs (like 1157) have only 3 connections.

1157 bulbs have dual filaments. Lo wattage (tailight) and hio-wattage (brake light). In those bulbs, one side of each filament is connected to the bulbs metal case (commmon). That in most cases is the positive voltage. Then, on the bottom of the housing there are 2 more contacts. One for hi and another one for low wattage.

But the "tab" type bulbs used in xB have each filament's connections on a sepatate contact (4 total). I'm talking about standard incandescent bulbs here.

So, since each end is separate there could be several different ways the engineers can connect the voltage to them (there is no true common).

LED bulbs dont have dual filaments. They use the same LEDs for both stop and taillight circuits. They just get powered up through some diodes and different value resistors.

Some LED bulb manufacturers assume that the 4 pin circuit will have certain specific pins hooked up together as the common positive. So, they most likely short 2 of the 4 pins together inside of the LED bulb. Well, xB has a non conventional common circuit. So, if you plug that LED bulb in, it shorts it out.

The LED bulbs I found are designed differently and they don't short out. But because of that, they only work when plugged in certain way (which is not a bad thing). If you want more info on those bulbs, check out my "clear easy taillight mod" thread.

Or, you could try to dissassemble your LED bulbs and rewire them internally.

 

thanks for your help peteski... when I went to buy my bulbs I debated getting them from the same place as you... but I didn't.

I'm trying to decide wether I want to rewire the harness and keep the bulbs I already have or chalk it up as a loss and order another set of LEDs.

As I'm sure you guys can tell from my questions, I'm no electronics whiz. If any of you can tell me how to rewire the pigtail I'll just do that.

 

It is not that easy. It is not the wiring harness. The unconventional wiring is actually in the bulb's socket. You would need to cut the contacts inside of it and rewire it. IMO, not worth the trouble.

If you want to go that route, it would probably be easier to take the LED bulb apart and rewire its internal connections.