Rear LED failure/replacement

[deano]

Thought i would share this with you,as i believe a few of you have experienced/experiancing a similar problem.I have had a few LED'S out on the rear tail light and brake light, enough to put a warning light on the dash,as the same LED operates both,this failure was caused by water ingress into the light unit on mine,as the lense is glued/bonded onto the light unit,the boding had started to fail as would be expected over time,Knowing the cost of these units thought it was worth a go at repair,(nothing to loose),i tried to weaken the remaining bonding by running a stanly blade over the seam,but thought ide loose a finger before it was free,so resulted to a very very fine junior hacksaw blade and very carfully cut throught he bonding,this was a little tricky as the lense's are very brittle and the light back is spigoted into the lense,once off there is a clear lense inside which is retained via two self tapping screws,these are reemoved enabling the circuit board to be lifted out,were it was very clear of the damage caused by the water ingress.the next step i cannot take credit for as i passed it over to our instrumentation department at work who tested and confirmed the LED'S had failed and a few resistors/transistors.
They cross referenced these and found a local supplier of the exact type fitted,once soldered into position the light unit can be re assembled and a modern 2pack epoxy bonding used to re fix the lense,
This also cured another issue ive always had as my O/S indicator always flashed quicker than the N/S so i assume a resistor that had failed also serves the indicator part of the unit,
i will post the part numbers of the replacement LED and resistors at a later date and the suppliers contact details,

 

[hodroyd]

Hi Deano,

Always good to have these threads and thanks for the heads up. Was there any damage to the circuit board, or was it just components?

Cheers
H

 

[deano]

it was just dameage to the components,the circuit board showed some sign of damage but this did not affect operation,the board is of a 3 layer laminated type,though the place we use at work for our circuit boards say they can reproduce the circuit board,for a reasonably fee,so if this starts to be a common fault this avenue may be worth persuing

 

[2b1ask1]

The forum at its best great work....

 

[davy83]

I can confirm this process is do-able, as I have also opened up one of my rear lights twice now and repaired the circuit board. I have not seen any problems with the bare board, but found both transistors and some LEDs faulty, relatively easily repaired, and not £1k replacement part!!! If It goes again I will take some pictures to show the process for any one who is keen!

 

[Parisien]

Excellent Davy83.....that would be a big help for future reference.


P

 

[deano]

i must oppologise for not doing any images but was in such a rush to get it back on the road,my circuit board damage was caused by water ingress and the 3 layer board had started to delaminate,though we do have a contact who can replicate this circuit board at a very reasonable price dependant on quantity,now to find a company who is prepared to replicate the lense's

 

[deano]

Further more to this thread are the part numbers for the items i used ,incase any of you need to repair at some point,they were sourced from RS COMPONENTS and the led's part number is 466-3419 this is for the tail light only and the transistor partt numbe ris 303-1596