Man, my homie gave me one crazy LED lighting array for my car a few months back, and after some nutty stuff, it finally let the magic smoke out.
The firts time, it was my fault, I ran the wires from the control box to the left light too close to a piece o' metal in the dash, and after two days, it wore through, I turned on my key to leave, and hade a nice plume of smoke, and melted wire all the way from the exact shortout point, to where the wire originated in the control unit.
Later that day, I rewired the whole left side of the setup, and everything worked fine, until the next day. I also run a single 9" neon tube, and neither it or the LED arrays worked. My first natural instinct was the ground, so I ran the wire for both of those to my H/U ground, and it was fixed.
A few days ago, I'm driving down the road with the lights set to pusle to music, and they quit working. I do push some mad bass nowadays, and I figured that the microphone in the control unit had seen one Db too many, and quit working. The array still worked fine in full on mode.
Day after that, I'm driving down the road gain, and the control unit catches fire. I quicly removed the fuse and pulled over. The entire length of wire all the way to the right light, and inside the light and control unit was fried. Interestingly enough, a little solder and careful breaking away of plastic, the lights still worked.
The control unit on the other hand, was a total loss. the cricuit board and everyhting was toasted.
Any ideas of a cause? Everything was working fine for a while, and then it hit the fan.
Replies (6)
swez on 07/23/2008 16:24:08
Yep... too much current through the wires and improper fuse rating will cause this. The wires can only handle so much wattage before they heat up and fry.
If making an educated quess, the light controller circuit shorted and allowed more current to flow than these lights/wiring were designed for. (A dead short) W/o a current regulator in place, current draw was excessive to the wires that feed the system and poof... fried wires.
In a nut shell, that's why we fuse the add-on devices to match current draw and wire gage. If current draw is well over design, the fuse blows and we don't fry wires. If we add other devices in parallel, the resistance drops and more current will fry the wires. HELLO!
Swez
SQLThump on 07/24/2008 07:02:04
I did fuse off the line between the control module and the power supply, I used a 15A blade style fuse. The LED array is rated at 10A, while the neon is 5A, so I figured the fuse would have blown when this happened, but to no avail.
When I cracked open the box, there was something that looked like a current regulator or something that was fried to a crisp. I think I saved the box, if I did, I'll take a picture and point it out.
swez on 07/24/2008 09:57:32
To handle that 15A's of current, need to use a #12 gage line for both devices in parallel. Then, split the lights like we do on amps with a D-block. If we simply sliced both lamps on a #16 gage line only, the wires would fry and then short out and the fuse would only blow after the short occurred.
See the connection?
Swez
SQLThump on 07/24/2008 11:25:40
I see it, and thats why it is ran that way, except I used 16 GA insead if 12 due to ease of installation. The 15A functions as this D-block, with wire to fuse box on one blade, and three wires on the other side to run to the lights. The wire from the control box to the fuse was perfectly intact, and the neon took no damage.
The only wires that melted were from the control box to lights, seen in Figure A as wires 5 and 6. These I believe were 22GA wires, and from the box to the fuse was 16 ga, the neon running a similar 22GA all the way from the fuse. These were all the wires these lights came with, so I felt no need to replace them right off.
Figure A:
Figure B is how everything is wired now The neon's stock wiring is retained, but the wire for the the lights is 16AWG from the fuse all the way to the lights. Fortunately, all the resitors and whatnot for the lights were built into the tubes themselves, and not the control modle, so they all work fine still without it.
Figure B
swez on 07/25/2008 01:44:05
After looking at your schematic, it makes sense how things were wired. It seems like the controller took a dump after its wires shorted/melted and there was not adequate fuse protection on that line to protect the controller.
In hindsight, fusing each set of lights as 10/5 A fuses respectively, may have saved the controller from meltdown. When you open the controller up for inspection, was there an internal fuse present or did the original power line for the controller have an inline fuse of 10A's?
Here's what I see:
Controller Box: ++++++++++ (10A fuse) ++++++ to B+ source
LED Bars: +++++++++++++ (5A fuse) +++++++ to B+ source
Common grounds are OK as noted
Using this method should have prevented controller failure. The method shown above allows up to 15A's on both lines, but does not protect the controller from over current conditions.
The LED lights are self-regulated with resistors/LED's within each light bar. They also have a wider range of operational voltage w/o damage to the bars.
Hope that helps,
Swez
ttocs on 07/29/2008 07:52:50
this is a great example of how you should have the fuse protecting the wire, not the circuits. I can't remember how many cars I have worked on with a black burn line running across the carpet, dash, or even the seat.......
The firts time, it was my fault, I ran the wires from the control box to the left light too close to a piece o' metal in the dash, and after two days, it wore through, I turned on my key to leave, and hade a nice plume of smoke, and melted wire all the way from the exact shortout point, to where the wire originated in the control unit.
Later that day, I rewired the whole left side of the setup, and everything worked fine, until the next day. I also run a single 9" neon tube, and neither it or the LED arrays worked. My first natural instinct was the ground, so I ran the wire for both of those to my H/U ground, and it was fixed.
A few days ago, I'm driving down the road with the lights set to pusle to music, and they quit working. I do push some mad bass nowadays, and I figured that the microphone in the control unit had seen one Db too many, and quit working. The array still worked fine in full on mode.
Day after that, I'm driving down the road gain, and the control unit catches fire. I quicly removed the fuse and pulled over. The entire length of wire all the way to the right light, and inside the light and control unit was fried. Interestingly enough, a little solder and careful breaking away of plastic, the lights still worked.
The control unit on the other hand, was a total loss. the cricuit board and everyhting was toasted.
Any ideas of a cause? Everything was working fine for a while, and then it hit the fan.
Replies (6)
swez on 07/23/2008 16:24:08
Yep... too much current through the wires and improper fuse rating will cause this. The wires can only handle so much wattage before they heat up and fry.
If making an educated quess, the light controller circuit shorted and allowed more current to flow than these lights/wiring were designed for. (A dead short) W/o a current regulator in place, current draw was excessive to the wires that feed the system and poof... fried wires.
In a nut shell, that's why we fuse the add-on devices to match current draw and wire gage. If current draw is well over design, the fuse blows and we don't fry wires. If we add other devices in parallel, the resistance drops and more current will fry the wires. HELLO!
Swez
SQLThump on 07/24/2008 07:02:04
I did fuse off the line between the control module and the power supply, I used a 15A blade style fuse. The LED array is rated at 10A, while the neon is 5A, so I figured the fuse would have blown when this happened, but to no avail.
When I cracked open the box, there was something that looked like a current regulator or something that was fried to a crisp. I think I saved the box, if I did, I'll take a picture and point it out.
swez on 07/24/2008 09:57:32
To handle that 15A's of current, need to use a #12 gage line for both devices in parallel. Then, split the lights like we do on amps with a D-block. If we simply sliced both lamps on a #16 gage line only, the wires would fry and then short out and the fuse would only blow after the short occurred.
See the connection?
Swez
SQLThump on 07/24/2008 11:25:40
I see it, and thats why it is ran that way, except I used 16 GA insead if 12 due to ease of installation. The 15A functions as this D-block, with wire to fuse box on one blade, and three wires on the other side to run to the lights. The wire from the control box to the fuse was perfectly intact, and the neon took no damage.
The only wires that melted were from the control box to lights, seen in Figure A as wires 5 and 6. These I believe were 22GA wires, and from the box to the fuse was 16 ga, the neon running a similar 22GA all the way from the fuse. These were all the wires these lights came with, so I felt no need to replace them right off.
Figure A:
Figure B is how everything is wired now The neon's stock wiring is retained, but the wire for the the lights is 16AWG from the fuse all the way to the lights. Fortunately, all the resitors and whatnot for the lights were built into the tubes themselves, and not the control modle, so they all work fine still without it.
Figure B
swez on 07/25/2008 01:44:05
After looking at your schematic, it makes sense how things were wired. It seems like the controller took a dump after its wires shorted/melted and there was not adequate fuse protection on that line to protect the controller.
In hindsight, fusing each set of lights as 10/5 A fuses respectively, may have saved the controller from meltdown. When you open the controller up for inspection, was there an internal fuse present or did the original power line for the controller have an inline fuse of 10A's?
Here's what I see:
Controller Box: ++++++++++ (10A fuse) ++++++ to B+ source
LED Bars: +++++++++++++ (5A fuse) +++++++ to B+ source
Common grounds are OK as noted
Using this method should have prevented controller failure. The method shown above allows up to 15A's on both lines, but does not protect the controller from over current conditions.
The LED lights are self-regulated with resistors/LED's within each light bar. They also have a wider range of operational voltage w/o damage to the bars.
Hope that helps,
Swez
ttocs on 07/29/2008 07:52:50
this is a great example of how you should have the fuse protecting the wire, not the circuits. I can't remember how many cars I have worked on with a black burn line running across the carpet, dash, or even the seat.......
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