Oil Light stayed on ?? LED · Aussieveedubbers

68AutoBug · 18 Jun 2010, 8:53 pm

My Beetles oil light stayed on yesterday...
[My Wife was driving My Beetle]

I tested the sender with a FLUKE multimeter and the resistance changed when I started the engine...
so the oil sender is OK.. [also not very old]
but the light stayed on...

the oil light stayed on again today.. in the morning..

but was going out this afternoon... [wife still driving..]

My Oil light is actually a 15000mcd bright 10mm LED..
with a resistor in the lead.. for 12 Volts..

so, I'm thinking its a problem with the LED ???

[maybe LEDs don't last forever..lol
but instead of going OFF they Go ON... lol]

LEE

vlad01 · 18 Jun 2010, 9:43 pm

you got current leakage somewhere. that led isn't dead it on therefor it works.
leds only require a few 10s of mili-amps so even small leakage will light them.

waveman1500 · 19 Jun 2010, 5:53 pm

I'd just swap it back to a normal globe. The sender system was designed to work with an incandescent globe of a certain resistance, so presumably going back to the factory setup will eliminate these problems.

squizy · 19 Jun 2010, 6:19 pm

Have you checked your oil? 😉

Joel · 19 Jun 2010, 7:33 pm

waveman1500 wrote:I'd just swap it back to a normal globe. The sender system was designed to work with an incandescent globe of a certain resistance, so presumably going back to the factory setup will eliminate these problems.

Agreed, why over complicate things, the light is only on for 2 secs and LEDs dont like unstable voltage like when an oil light is only just flickering if your idle drops down to low

68AutoBug · 20 Jun 2010, 1:33 am

squizy wrote:Have you checked your oil? 😉

Yes...
New oil and its full...

only problem... its Castrol GTX2.. lol

Maybe that's the problem???

LEE

68AutoBug · 20 Jun 2010, 1:40 am

Joel wrote:
waveman1500 wrote:I'd just swap it back to a normal globe. The sender system was designed to work with an incandescent globe of a certain resistance, so presumably going back to the factory setup will eliminate these problems.
Agreed, why over complicate things, the light is only on for 2 secs and LEDs dont like unstable voltage like when an oil light is only just flickering if your idle drops down to low

Yes,
I will do that...
I forgot about the changing resistance of the sender... lol

Looks like the problem isn't the LED...
Working again today.... lol

but flasher and Alternator lights have gone out...
had to connect a lamp to the alternator to drive the beetle today...

Now blinker LED is working but very low in brightness...??
blinkers themselves work OK... even when telltale LED wasn't

I have to fit a couple of Fuseboxes with the push in fuses..
have been putting it off for a year... lol

too many wires [connectors] going to the fusebox...lol

LEE

ratty 63 · 22 Jun 2010, 12:20 am

yep, sounds like a bad connection somewhere. I considered converting my warning lights to LED, but the extra mucking about with load resistors and the possibility of the same sorts of problems that you are experiencing turned me off the conversion.

Just a thought though, have you checked the battery/charge voltage? As you probably know, LED's don't survive very long if the voltage is too high - normal bulbs are a little more tolerant....

Let us know how you get on...

R 🙂