Author Topic: LED Automotive Lamps Drawing Power Even When Off  (Read 2309 times)
CEB1993
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Camdenburns93
LED Automotive Lamps Drawing Power Even When Off « on: October 08, 2020, 08:46:33 PM » Author: CEB1993
Hi all, I am excited to say that I will be upgrading my car to Sylvania LED fog lights (H11). These Osram Sylvania lamps I got are made in Italy and feature a high quality heat sink rather than a cooling fan for improved reliability. Please stay tuned for some pictures here on my LG automotive album 8) As excited as I am to install my new fog lights later this month, I do have a few questions...

I've heard that some automotive LEDs can draw power and run at minimum brightness while the car is running and possibly when the car is turned off. This could lead to battery drainage. I haven't had this issue personally, but I was wondering if it is a common concern with LED upgrades?

Will LED lamps work with steering responsive fog lights (i.e. when I turn left, the driver side lamp illuminates and when I turn right, the passenger side lamp illuminates)?
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wide-lite 1000
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Re: LED Automotive Lamps Drawing Power Even When Off « Reply #1 on: October 08, 2020, 08:59:37 PM » Author: wide-lite 1000
I've never had that problem with my cars. I have LEDs in the taillights , license plate lights , dome lights and reverse lights of both my 1993 Subaru Legacy sedan and my 2003 Mercury Marauder with no issues other than hyper flashing of the turn signals in the Marauder . I can't see why it would draw power if the vehicle isn't sending any power to it (switch off ) . Maybe the newer computer controlled car's electrical system could do something weird like that . I have no idea !
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CEB1993
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Camdenburns93
Re: LED Automotive Lamps Drawing Power Even When Off « Reply #2 on: October 08, 2020, 09:07:18 PM » Author: CEB1993
I've never had that problem with my cars. I have LEDs in the taillights , license plate lights , dome lights and reverse lights of both my 1993 Subaru Legacy sedan and my 2003 Mercury Marauder with no issues other than hyper flashing of the turn signals in the Marauder . I can't see why it would draw power if the vehicle isn't sending any power to it (switch off ) . Maybe the newer computer controlled car's electrical system could do something weird like that . I have no idea !

Sweet! You have a 1993 Subaru Legacy sedan?! That's my age! Thats awesome, I've got the 2016 Subaru Legacy sedan. It's been bullet proof as far as reliability. I hope to drive mine until the wheels fall off  ;D

Anyway, I'm glad to hear your LED upgrades have worked out well. I suppose the lower wattage in your Marauder's blinker lights from the LEDs indicated a burnt out bulb and thus doubled the speed of the blinker lights. I'm not upgrading my blinker lights to LED yet, but I'll keep that in mind. Thanks for the advice  8)
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wide-lite 1000
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Re: LED Automotive Lamps Drawing Power Even When Off « Reply #3 on: October 08, 2020, 09:18:45 PM » Author: wide-lite 1000
The '93 was given to me by a friend. It has 217,6XX miles on it . It originally came from somewhere in South Carolina so it has only minor rust compared to a "normal" Ohio car . It runs and drives great and has surprising power for a non-turbo 4 cyl. It has a number of "issues" that need tending to but at this time I don't have the time or money to put towards the needed work .
It can be seen in the background of this pic. :  https://www.lighting-gallery.net/gallery/displayimage.php?album=5485&pos=13&pid=166228  Yes, I have Ford wheelcovers and Ford emblems on it replacing the Subaru parts in order to really confuse people ! :lol:
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Bulbman256
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Re: LED Automotive Lamps Drawing Power Even When Off « Reply #4 on: October 08, 2020, 11:11:27 PM » Author: Bulbman256
Hey cool you got a marauder! The panther platform has to be one of my favorite platforms of the modern car era as they are dead reliable and the parts are so cheap since they made so many of them as crown Vic's for fleet use. The marauder is the crem de la crem of platform as i think its the fastest and has pretty interesting styling compared to the grand marquee.
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wide-lite 1000
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Re: LED Automotive Lamps Drawing Power Even When Off « Reply #5 on: October 08, 2020, 11:20:57 PM » Author: wide-lite 1000
Thanks ! It's a fun and comfortable car that surprises a lot of people with it's performance. It's no race car but it definitely can get out of it's own way , no problem . speed is computer limited to 125 mph. I don't need to go any faster anyways !
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Medved
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Re: LED Automotive Lamps Drawing Power Even When Off « Reply #6 on: October 09, 2020, 12:39:39 AM » Author: Medved
Hi all, I am excited to say that I will be upgrading my car to Sylvania LED fog lights (H11). These Osram Sylvania lamps I got are made in Italy and feature a high quality heat sink rather than a cooling fan for improved reliability. Please stay tuned for some pictures here on my LG automotive album 8) As excited as I am to install my new fog lights later this month, I do have a few questions...

I've heard that some automotive LEDs can draw power and run at minimum brightness while the car is running and possibly when the car is turned off. This could lead to battery drainage. I haven't had this issue personally, but I was wondering if it is a common concern with LED upgrades?

Will LED lamps work with steering responsive fog lights (i.e. when I turn left, the driver side lamp illuminates and when I turn right, the passenger side lamp illuminates)?

The LEDs can not draw power when they are disconnected.

But it is a common thing in the cars to maintain many ECUs powered, just in a sleep mode where they have minimal consumption (most car makers have 100uA limit for accepting a new module design from supplier, anticipating few 10's of them in a car), so few mA cosumption of an entire parked car is normal. It is still way less than the internal battery leakages, so big issue.

But there are two problems:
When there is some defect, mainly in the ocmmunication networks, some modules may not enter the sleep mode and remain active and draw way more current.
And other problem affects mainly the diagnostic, but also is the main cause for the drained batteries: Many, even rather high power, things activate already when you unlock and mainly open the door (fuel pump flushing out the air from the system, glow plugs warming up in diesels, sometimes oil pump pregreasing the engine,...; all to allow seemingly immediate prompt start of the engine), some remain active after the car gets parked (water and oil pumps to continue cool down mainly the turbo,...; to prevent the heat from the otherwise very hot running components destroy parts not designed for the heat - e.g. turbo shaft seals and bearing can can be easily destroyed by the heat from the turbine wheel normally operating at the exhaust gas temperature), which first makes the diagnostic of the battery drain difficult (you have to first wait before these things shut down before taking any measurement) and second seemingly innocent messing with the car (mainly just opening the doors) may actually drain the battery pretty soon.
That of course bring sensitivity to defects noone cared before: E.g. a glitchy door closing switches may easily drain the battery overnight - cause the engine prepping itself for start (pressurizing fuel and oil systems, warming up glow plugs,...) many times at night.
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