replacing existing top brake light bulbs with LED

[thekyle]

I went to replace to the small globes in my top mount brake light strip (as a number of them had blown) and the shop only had LEDs. So I fitted LEDs in place of the existing globes, and I now get a brake light blown warning on my dash (LEDs are working fine though). I have tried to do my sums and work out what resistor I need to add to the circuit to make the warning go away but have had no success.

So, can anybody either tell me what resistor to add, or provide me the details of the original globes (what wattage they are) so I can try and fix this issue.

I have a 2001 Audi 8L S3.

 

[sportstractor]

The led's you fit need to be the same power as the originals as you probably realise. You could test the resistance across the existing leds and calculate how far out yours are. I have some LED's out myself so might give it a crack

 

[Dani_B19]

Are the original bulbs just white and the brake housing is just red? If so ive got some white led's i may pop in.

 

[Dazboss]

You need to buy canbus LED 1.2W bulbs to fix this problem, its far simpler than trying to add anything to the circuit.

The original bulbs i replaced in mine were glass 1.2W (i think) replaced them all with like for like. The bulb number is 286's there tiny push in bulbs.

Dani_B19 - Yes the bulbs are clear & the outer casing is red.

 

[gavin89]

You need to buy canbus LED 1.2W bulbs to fix this problem, its far simpler than trying to add anything to the circuit.

Where can you buy them from? How much are they?

 

[Dazboss]

http://www.ultraleds.com

Think this chap does them, i used him years ago. Great service.

 

[thekyle]

Make sure you buy red LEDs and not white! The white LEDs are not a "real" white light. They are a filtered white light. What this means is that when you look at your brake light, after you have put the red lens on, they actually look orange. This has something to frequency of light emitted from LEDs and absorbed by the red lens cover. Anyways, just buy red