Discovery 2 & LED Trailer Lights?

[Shaker]

By the time I get this vehicle set up you will all be sick of me!

Anyway, I am sure that some time ago, (before I even thought I would become a Discovery owner), I read that Discovery 2 didn't like LED trailer lights & that some sort of modification had to be made for them to work, resistor?
Is this correct, or just another urban myth?

[Hymie]

They will work, it's just that the trailer flash indicator on your dash wont work without enough resistance in the circuit.

[Slunnie]

Other way around. The LED wont flow enough electricity... so dont put any resisters in the system.

[Shaker]

I am even more confused now!

[LandyAndy]

LEDS work fine on the D2,I have even replaced my bumper lights with LEDS,my trailer has LEDS too.The trailer light on your dash wont work when you have the indicators on.If you have a bullbar with exta indicators chances are the trailer light flashes already.
The trailer light is a euro thing,they must have a dashlight to tell them the indicators are working on the trailer.
Andrew

[dmdigital]

They should work fine in the trailer as the flasher unit will be triggered by the standard bulbs on the vehicle.

What will happen though is that instead of the trailer indicator flashing in sequence with the directional indicator it will only flash once (or not at all) like when a trailer isn't connected. This is due to the fact the LED's don't draw enough to trigger the lamp to function.

You'll see reference made sometimes to "why does the trailer indicator flash after fitting a bullbar?". This is due to the additional bulbs in the bullbar drawing more and the car thinks the circuit has a trailer attached to it.

My camper trailer has LED's and works fine.

[MickG]

I have them on my D2. When I first installed my bull bar, the dash trailer indicator light flashed when indicating, this was fixed by replacing bull bar indicator bulbs with lower wattage bulbs (reducing load). When I fitted the LED indicators to my rear bar, the trailer light would then flash again. Fixed simply by re-fitting the original higher wattage bulbs back into the bull bar. The system works on load I believe but to answer your question, the LEDs will work and will flash.....just depends how fast and whether your trailer indicator light will also flash:D That is about the limit of my understanding.

Hope that helps, Mick

[harlie]

By the time I get this vehicle set up you will all be sick of me!

Anyway, I am sure that some time ago, (before I even thought I would become a Discovery owner), I read that Discovery 2 didn't like LED trailer lights & that some sort of modification had to be made for them to work, resistor?
Is this correct, or just another urban myth?

Disco 2 is fine with LED trailer lights - it's Disco 3 thats need the extra mod.

[slug_burner]

LEDs for trailer lights will work fine.

The issue of resistors or additional load becomes an issue if you want the light (trailer symbol) on the dash to work.

each flasher bulb draws an amount of current for 21 watt flasher (I think that is correct) using Ohms law (V=IR) and power in watss P = VxI gives 21/12= 1.75 Amps therefore at V = 12 each flasher bulb will draw 1.75 Amps. At 2 x 1.75 = 3.5 amps the dash trailer symbol will not light up, at 3 X 1.75= 5.25 Amps the dash symbol will light up (somewhere between 3.5 and 5.25 Amps). each LED only needs 10-20 milliamps to light up (0.01-0.020 Amps) a cluster of LEDS will draw 0.2-0.6 Amps (depending on how many individual LEDs and how they are wired) as used in trailer lights.

SO as other have said the trailer lights will work fine it is just that the circuit to light up the dash trailer symbol will not be able to detect that a trailer is hooked up as not enought current is drawn. You can either add more LED lights to get the dash symbol circuit to work or you can place a resistor in parrallel with the LED cluster to fool the detection circuit that there is enough load to detect that there is a trailer hooked up.

over to you

[John W]

Just curious to know where you would get LED replacement lamps for ARB bull bar. Would like to stop my Dash trailer indicator lamp going on due to my ARB bull bar lamps and keep this nifty function for towing.

[dmdigital]

Because I can't get any cheap LED replacements I use 5W bulbs in the bullbar. Still very bright and no trailer flasher.

[Shaker]

Just curious to know where you would get LED replacement lamps for ARB bull bar. Would like to stop my Dash trailer indicator lamp going on due to my ARB bull bar lamps and keep this nifty function for towing.

Good question, I had been looking around myself, I guess a call to ARB might help.

[slug_burner]

you can get led replacements for most if not all bulb style incandescent lights. Try e-bay like this one (http://tinyurl.com/5vvknl)

[airfireman1]

bought my led globes for my ARB bulbar from Dick Smith store, around $6 each. Get the clear ones.
They work a treat and I dont have the trailer light flashing on the dash any more.
cheers Dave

[waynep]

Jaycar have them too - not cheap tho