August 06, 2020
LED Lamps and Flashers

Some of us are switching to LEDs for lights in our cars, and I learned something useful on that subject this week. My first try to get the turn signals to flash properly was to use a load-insensitive flasher, usually sold as heavy duty or capable of handling a trailer. This worked OK as long as there was still one incandescent bulb in the system. But when the bulbs were all replaced with LED, it would not flash at all. Amazon had a few flashers advertised as LED capable, and they're cheap. But again they gave no flash at all.

Then I tried an LED flasher from Painless. It has a separate ground wire, totally different principle from regular flashers. When I installed it, there was again no flash. But Painless, being the squared away company they are, already had a solution. The flasher terminal marked X should connect to switched 12 Volts, the terminal marked L goes to the turn signal switch. The terminals in the El Camino were in the opposite position. So I made little jumpers per the Painless instructions to cross wire the terminals, and turn signals work as advertised. In fact using those jumpers to cross wire the cheapo flashers made them work as advertised also. But it's only fair to keep the one from Painless and return the cheapos to Amazon.

Hope this helps.
Karl