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Mirror courtesy lights 6 years 6 months ago #180786

A question for those who know about electrickery! I recently changed the bulbs in my mirror for LEDs and noticed last night that they are dimly illuminated when everything is off and the car locked. Presumably they shouldn’t do this so are they faulty?

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Mirror courtesy lights 6 years 6 months ago #180787

That is normal with LEDs in a F/TF. Don't worry it wont flatten your battery either. Mine have been in for years without any problems.

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Last edit: Post by Bob.

Mirror courtesy lights 6 years 6 months ago #180788

Hi there-I also changed my 501 footwell and rear view mirror conventional festoon bulbs for led equivalents and they definitely fade off as they should after the doors are closed

Mike

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Mirror courtesy lights 6 years 6 months ago #180789

Yes I changed my footwell lights only for blue led and they fade off like normal aswell.

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Mirror courtesy lights 6 years 6 months ago #180790

I have red LED in mine, they are the CANBUS type, which I think you should use to prevent the dim glow caused by the passive components in the control system.
Normal bulbs have a larger current drain, LED's are a fraction of this. The CANBUS LED's have internal circuitry that prevents false no bulb detection on low wattage lamps.
The car circuits are designed to detect blown bulbs and ordinary LED lamps can sometimes fool the car!

Sundance

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Mirror courtesy lights 6 years 6 months ago #180791

I have red LED in mine, they are the CANBUS type, which I think you should use to prevent the dim glow caused by the passive components in the control system.
Normal bulbs have a larger current drain, LED's are a fraction of this. The CANBUS LED's have internal circuitry that prevents false no bulb detection on low wattage lamps.
The car circuits are designed to detect blown bulbs and ordinary LED lamps can sometimes fool the car!

Sundance


Most CANBUS compatible LED bulbs (certainly the cheaper ones) just have a resistor in them to "simulate" the current drain of a normal bulb. They just fool the ECU that a normal bulb has been installed.

Not worth using unless your car has warning lights to indicate a bulb failure, or are replacing indicator bulbs..

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Mirror courtesy lights 6 years 6 months ago #180794

Thanks all! The footwell lights fade out as normal it is just the ones in the bottom of the mirror. I don’t think they are can bus ones but I won’t worry about them.

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Mirror courtesy lights 6 years 6 months ago #180796

I am sure that the MGTF of all years dosent have CANBUS networking.
Think this was adopted much later from 2012 EURO 5 ( MGTF being EURO3/ 4)
If any one decides to replace the festoon bulbs in the rear view mirror this can be done without removing the mirror assy ,just remove the underside plastic covers and click in the led festoons.

Mike

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Mirror courtesy lights 6 years 6 months ago #180797

No the light in the F/TF are not CANBUS.

That is no the issue.

The interior bulbs dim gradually when turned off. This is done with electronics in the control unit.

However they were designed with normal filament bulbs in mind, and expect to see the low resistance of a bulb. An LED has a much higher resistance, and consumes much less power.

The control unit isn't switched (otherwise the bulbs would go out as soon as you took the keys out the ignition) and relies on electronic components to gradually reduce the power to the bulb to nothing. Unfortunately these are not perfect devices, and leak a small current (milliamps) when OFF. A normal bulb this would not be enough to illuminate the bulb, but because LED uses much less current (milliamps) it is enough to just get it to glow.

However CANBUS LED bulbs have a resistor built into them, to make the LED consume the same power as an ordinary bulb. (This is to fool the control unit on a CANBUS system to think there is a normal bulb there). However this resistor will also "drain" the leakage from the control unit to ground, so the LED will nit illuminate.

This is why CANBUS LED are often recommended when replacing these bulbs.

Unfortunatly CANBUS bulbs are larger than normal ones, and often struggle to replace these tiny bulbs.
The following user(s) said Thank You: talkingcars

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Mirror courtesy lights 6 years 6 months ago #180800

You can get them in the interior mirror.
I had two different sizes, one fitted the other didn't but the shorter ones were not as good, they flickered a lot when on, so I managed to fit the longer ones in by pushing the lampholder down inside the mirror a few millimetres. They work great and fade just as normal filament lamps.
The lampholder is loose now, but the longer canbus LED's fit ok and there is no rattle inside the mirror.
Only issue is the red LED's look great, but not that practical as a light.
I may replace them for white sometime.

Sundance

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Mirror courtesy lights 6 years 6 months ago #180836

I believe it is because the interior light is connected to the alarm system so a power supply is constantly present, however it is only a small amount, too tiny for a normal light bulb to be seen illuminated, LEDs will activate with this low voltage, hence the fact it is now noticeable, i only know this as I asked same question when I did my interior many moons ago,

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