map lights leave me puzzled :-(

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TOWRIGG

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did my interior led's today on my 03 denali and love them but im a little baffled as to why the map lights arent as bright when used individually as to when turned on with the rest of the interior lights....my boys tahoe does the same thing. is there less power to them when used with the button as opposed to when turned on with the rest of the lights with the switch?? when i turn the second light on via button the first one dims as well as the second one coming on dim....but no where near as bright as when switched on or door opened....any idea's why this is??? thank you...
 

Rivieraracing

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did my interior led's today on my 03 denali and love them but im a little baffled as to why the map lights arent as bright when used individually as to when turned on with the rest of the interior lights....my boys tahoe does the same thing. is there less power to them when used with the button as opposed to when turned on with the rest of the lights with the switch?? when i turn the second light on via button the first one dims as well as the second one coming on dim....but no where near as bright as when switched on or door opened....any idea's why this is??? thank you...

Alot of us have been through that that have switched to LED's and it was quite an experience to how we solved it!! Basically, the normal bulbs draw quite a bit more current, and when you switch on a light manually, the draw kicks on another circuit which gives the light full power! When you switch to LED, the draw is practically not there, which is the reason you only get half lit LED's!!

What you need to buy for every light that you can switch on manually with a switch is the CANBUS style LED bulbs for each!! The canbus style bulbs have a built in resistor in them which solves the problem in a heartbeat!! We tried other ways to solve it and they worked as well, but this is indeed the easiest solution!!

So basically, would need to buy them for the first row map lights, second row dome lights, and the vanity lights in the visors if those bug you with only being half bright!!

Here's an example of what I bought for my map lights!!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/2-CANBUS-T1...Parts_Accessories&hash=item2a19991aa9&vxp=mtr
 
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TOWRIGG

TOWRIGG

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i gotcha....had to get canibus led's for my clk...thanks for explaining that,really makes sense and cleared that up. i now know what must be done..lol hope they match the rest of the lights...lol appreciate it much
 

Rivieraracing

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i gotcha....had to get canibus led's for my clk...thanks for explaining that,really makes sense and cleared that up. i now know what must be done..lol hope they match the rest of the lights...lol appreciate it much

I bought mine through the same seller, helps insure that they will pretty much match!!
 
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TOWRIGG

TOWRIGG

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i have these on my switched domes and theyre crazy bright....was thinking of using them also on my second and third row maps...do you think i should get them canbus style or just the same as i already have?
4210-W6HP_mm1.jpg
 

Rivieraracing

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i have these on my switched domes and theyre crazy bright....was thinking of using them also on my second and third row maps...do you think i should get them canbus style or just the same as i already have?
4210-W6HP_mm1.jpg

If they have their own manual switch to turn them on, then I'd get them in Canbus, otherwise the others only turn on with the interior lights and you will never have the dimming problem with them!! Just make sure that bulb will fit in the lights you are talking about before assuming that they will fit!
 

Suburbinator

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i have these on my switched domes and theyre crazy bright....was thinking of using them also on my second and third row maps...do you think i should get them canbus style or just the same as i already have?

I've been running a similar style from Superbrightleds.com for years in my '02 and just put them in my new Burb too. All the roof lights have been converted and there's no weird behavior, just nice and bright.
 

Rivieraracing

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I've been running a similar style from Superbrightleds.com for years in my '02 and just put them in my new Burb too. All the roof lights have been converted and there's no weird behavior, just nice and bright.

A while back when I was helping a few guys on here solve their dimming problem, everyone thought it was only a '03 and up problem at first. Then I decided to buy enough lights to do my '02 denali and low and behold my truck had the same problem!! Crazy how mine did because some other guys with '02 and lower didn't have a problem at all!! It also didn't matter for the guys with the problem whether they bought the cheap Ebay bulbs ( like i did) or the superbrights, their lights still dimmed unless they went with canbus!!
 
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TOWRIGG

TOWRIGG

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If they have their own manual switch to turn them on, then I'd get them in Canbus, otherwise the others only turn on with the interior lights and you will never have the dimming problem with them!! Just make sure that bulb will fit in the lights you are talking about before assuming that they will fit![/QUO


im gonna get them canbus too...makes sense since they have there own switch...weird how the same year trucks can react differently. i believe 03 and up some simple things changed like no under hood light or foot well lights but pre 03 has them...guess gm got alittle cheap..lol..
once again thank you for the info...well def let you know how it came out.
 

Rivieraracing

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If they have their own manual switch to turn them on, then I'd get them in Canbus, otherwise the others only turn on with the interior lights and you will never have the dimming problem with them!! Just make sure that bulb will fit in the lights you are talking about before assuming that they will fit![/QUO


im gonna get them canbus too...makes sense since they have there own switch...weird how the same year trucks can react differently. i believe 03 and up some simple things changed like no under hood light or foot well lights but pre 03 has them...guess gm got alittle cheap..lol..
once again thank you for the info...well def let you know how it came out.

No problem, like I said a bunch of us spent months throwing ideas back and forth trying to solve this problem, the after a few fixes then someone mentioned that there was even such a thing as a canbus (I'd never heard of one before but the LED's were a new thing for me). That guy, 05nali, bought a few to try and low and behold it worked!!
So like I said, canbus style for any lights that you can turn on individually, and the rest you can use reg LED for as they only turn on with the doors open or manually turning all the int lights on with switch on the headlight switch cluster!!
Please do update this thread when you get them all installed please!!
 

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