Failed LED Gauges

[Misuseofyou]

So, I did my LED gauges a while back.. Changed the 194 bulbs to WLEDx5 from superbrightleds.com, and added some 3mm to make the gauges glow. I wired them up with resistors (as needed) in parallel, and have power coming from the ignition wire, grounded to a bolt behind where the gauge cluster goes. As far as I can tell the wires are not shorting, they're all insulated with hot glue and tape. Aside from my speedo not glowing quite as brightly as the others, theres no problem with that side of the project. The problem comes in when I plug in the stock connector which powers the gauges. It will work completely normally, until I turn the car off. With the car off and key out of the ignition, the gauge cluster flashes random lights, the mileage is still showing, and my door locks start going off on their own. Pics included. Looks like the pictures didn't turn out well, gotta figure out how to turn the flash off.

Engine on:
http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/2435/img0102yd3.th.jpg (http://img8.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img0102yd3.jpg)

Engine on 2:
http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/3664/img0103rs4.th.jpg (http://img15.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img0103rs4.jpg)

Engine off, key out:
http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/4494/img0104fy7.th.jpg (http://img22.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img0104fy7.jpg)

Engine off 2:
http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/9551/img0105pu5.th.jpg (http://img16.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img0105pu5.jpg)


The LEDs go off, but the warning lights and mileage stay on. Basically, the shit bird has struck again. Any ideas?

[Nate's Alero]

woah!!! never seen anything like that@!!

unhook the battery

[Misuseofyou]

I've just left it unplugged for like the last month. My LEDs come on but the needles have no power.

[cherrington17]

ok.

1)so are you sure you spliced into the right wire... where the leds are on when the car is on, and NOT a "constant on" wire?
2) hopefully you weren't hot glue-ing anywhere near the circuit board... with how hot it can get, you can melt traces off the board.
3) double,triple,quadruple all connections for shorts/touching contacts

double check your wire harness for being clipped in upside down/bent contacts, etc.

[Misuseofyou]

Definately not a constant 12v wire, the LEDs have been working properly (with the stock plug out) for a month or so. They go off when the key is turned off. You can see the pink wire I tapped into in one of the pictures.

I did hot glue near the circuit board, but that was after this problem started. I went back in and tried to fix it by better insulating the wires. Didn't work, but I'm certain I didn't touch the iron to the board.

I'll go and start checking the plug and all connections.. Theres maybe a small small chance that one of the LED wires could be touching one of the needle 'motors', but I doubt it and dont even see how that could cause this. My LED circuit is not energized when the key is in the off position. Very confusing.

[cherrington17]

which is what makes me think its in the harness....

[Misuseofyou]

Well, no more working on this tonight. I had barely started when I figured I should grab my glue gun. Except I lent it to a woman. Call her up and after saying she doesn't know a few times, she becomes certain that she returned it. I'll have to buy another tomorrow. I need a drink.

[Misuseofyou]

Oh yeah, the pins where the plug goes in are all straight, and to the eye everything looks ok. I'll dedicate tomorrow night to the project.

[StoopidAlero]

Just thought id throw this out there.. Your power door locks are going nuts along with some of your dash lights bc you tapped into the ignition wire. Not sure why it does that, but it has something to do with the ignition switch. You can also get power from the orange cig lighter wire. Still a constant and wont mess with the dash lights and door locks.

[lonnie]

Like stoopid said I would take anything you have connected to the pink wire off of that...I have a 2000 2.4L and that wire goes from the instrument cluster to the BMC and is for the serial data spi clock...you could be screwing up more then you realize.


use the below thread to look up your wiring diagram to find a suitable wire
http://www.aleromod.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19347

[Misuseofyou]

I actually fixed that up and it's been running fine for the last week. LEDs come on when key is in the On position; go off with the car and no more whacky shit happening. I could connect it to constant power with a switch, but then I'd have to mount it and it would look out of place I think. I'll just roll the dice and see what happens with how it's set up now. I'll take a pic tonight and post it here if you care to see the end result.

[cherrington17]

if you connect it to the power line, running the bulb in your cubby... you can bypass the switch. they turn on at night, and turn off in daylight.

[Misuseofyou]

Does that mean you're against tapping into the ignition power wire as well Cherrington?

Here's my gauge cluster. I dont see any hotspots while driving, but if I lean in close you can see the bulb under the temp and fuel gauges. Those needles are also a bit brighter than the tach and speedo (even though they only have 1 LED each).
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/3830/img0109z.th.jpg (http://img5.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img0109z.jpg)

[cherrington17]

no. no ignition! :lol:

you'll only have one power wire. going to the cubby light power. then one ground. problem solved.

[cavaliers60]

:lol: I took the easy way out when I did my gauges.... I just took out the 194 bulbs and put in 194 LED bulbs. :p

[Misuseofyou]

I tried that, but the bulbs I had didn't make proper contact with the metal clip in the bulb holder. I pulled the clip out and fed the leads through the openings, then soldered it up. Here's a bad drawing of my wiring.

http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/3778/isuckatdrawing.th.png (http://img530.imageshack.us/my.php?image=isuckatdrawing.png)

[cavaliers60]

I had that issue too and have a couple that don't work, but the rest work. :)

[cherrington17]

wiring doesn't look... horrible.

besides the fact that your twisting wire and taping it.

:vomit:

[cavaliers60]

wiring doesn't look... horrible.

besides the fact that your twisting wire and taping it.

:vomit:

:lol: You don't want to see some of my old wiring then. haha I use to do that until I learned the art of Soldering. :D

[Ghadsphi]

Most of my stuff is crimped in lol. My old soldering iron was one of those $5 ones that melted the tip off so I decided to upgrade and crimp everything, only thing I soldered were the leds and all of those connections broke, I've replaced the cubby hole ones, still need to redo the window switchs.
One thing I'm noticing about the cubby light power, I have 4 blue leds in series in the cubby and below 1krpm they flicker a bit, any easy way to fix that without using a cap or spliting into 2 2leds with a resistor? (i'm also running my guages off it too but they don't flicker.)

[FamousFresh]

im having the same problem but all i did was put the led blubs in, and after about a month.

now they wont come on i need help bad i think im just goin to buy another gauge cluster and see what happends.