Trailer LED Light Question

So, I upgraded my Boatmate trailer lights to LED's so they are brighter/more visible than the old bulbs. Except the resistance on the new LED's is so low that my truck (2008 Tundra) thinks the light is burned out, as a result it flashes really quickly (just how it does when the bulb is burned out). How can I fix this, does the fix lie in the truck or the trailer?

Thanks in advance...

Truck! Trade it in on a new 09 F150.

Inline resistor

Hate: Thanks, but no thanks; my last Ford caught on fire.

Scooter: Where is the inline resistor?

I just changed every bulb on my truck to LED, including the turn signals. Since the draw is so much less with the LEDs, my signals hyper-flash also. I'm ordering a set of these...

http://www.gorecon.com/products.php?p_cat=67&cname=LED+BULB+RESISTOR+KIT

The above will work but doesn't always fix the issue 100%. What you should truthfully do is replace the trucks relay with a LED supportive on like in the link

http://www.superbrightleds.com/flashers.htm

Unfortunately they don't have them for all models of vehicles. I did the resistors Ryan mentioned and it didn't fix my flashing on the led signals I installed. The flasher relay will.

Had the same problem with the Land Rover. Picked up the inline resistors from here. http://autolumination.com/equalizers.htm

Thanks so much guys

I picked up a adapter from VW for our Touareg.

It's plug'n play.. about $100.00

then again it's OEM. ..

You can do it like Greg did it for $100 or you can do it the way I did for about $10 in resistors from Radio Shack but you will need to use Ohm's law and do a little math. If you vehicle does not have burnt lamp protection you can probably just change the flasher using the link Dave provided above.

Step 1. figure out what resistance you circuit expects to see

http://www.the12volt.com/ohm/ohmslaw.asp

Resistance = Volts x Volts / lamp Watts
You will need to look your factory lamp specs on a table like the one available at:
http://genet.gelighting.com/LightProducts/Dispatcher?REQUEST=CONSUMERAUTOMOTIVE&CHANNEL=Cons umer&APPLICATION=Automotive&CATEGORY=Lamps

For the Tundra the front turn signal lamp is an S8 that draws 28 watts at 12.8 volts. Assuming your new LED draws about 1 watt you can do the math to calculate the resistor needed to fake out your lamp circuit.

(12.8 x 12.8) / (28 - 1) = 6 ohms

assuming a 50% duty cycle on your turn signal you will need at least a 10 watt resistor, probably more, and it will get fairly hot so keep that in mind when you choose your location for installation.

Step 2. install resistors in parallel with the LEDs you installed in place of the lamps

Step 3. see if it works as expected, it may not the first time and you may need to adjust the value of the resistors.

Obviously swapping your factory lights out to LEDs is not as easy as the ebay sellers would like you to believe. If you do this you will also lose the burnt lamp notification from your vehicle. After a couple months I put most of the standard lamps back in my Toyota so it could function as it was designed.