2001 Pontiac Sunfire, fyi

alright, so I was trying to replace the HVAC bulbs with some L.E.D.s. I went to the store, bought some leds and some resistors.

i had 2 5v leds that i was planning on putting there. so i bought 220 ohm resistors according to the formula i found in Raptor's forum.

the only problem with this, is once i had everything set up, i turned on the lights. the led got really bright, and orange. almost like it was about to explode. i heard some crackling so i thought i fried it. i turned off my lights.

so i thought i needed a different resistor. i got them all hooked up, and tried again. i had noticed this time though that the led didn't even blink once like it would if i would have shorted it. instead, NO lights came on.

no HVAC lights, no radio lights, and no cluster lights. WHAT HAPPENED!?

the odometer (thinger that measures miles) is still on, so is the clock/cd player, just the buttons aren't lit up. the little light by the AC button is still working too. but what happened?

HOW DO I FIX THIS!?

please anyone try and help me!!!

the led's sound like they are dead. go to www.bit-tech.net, i think thats the site, they have an LED calculator there. MUCH better. i used that, and i have red led's behind clear knobs, and they worked perfect from day one.


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You probably smoked the fuse...?




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Haha you broke it.

A better way to go aobut this... instead of using resistors... use 5 volt voltage regulators

I promise they will have them at a store like RadioShack.

Its got three pins: 12v in, ground, and 5v out

The ground from the regulator and the 5v device (led) go to your cars (12v) ground.

The input can be anywhere from like 5 to 38 volts, and the outsput will always be 5v. So whether your car is on or off, you'll have the same voltage output.

One note though, voltage regulators give off the extra voltage (7v in your casse) as heat, when you but it you will notice it has a samll heatsink on it. For your application, i would suggest mouting it with a screw to metal (not plastic!!!) or at least put some sort of larger (1 inch swuare) metal peice on the back of it for a heat sink.

And on a note to my note.... the heatsink that is built-in to the regulator is also a ground for the regulaotr, so if you mount it to the body of your car, you wont need to wire the ground of the regulator (the middle pin).


 
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