No caravan indicator warning sound with on caravan
Comments
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i can remember all my cars in those days made the warning light flash faster when the trailer bulb went so why was a buzzer fitted
Is there an echo in here or is it me?
Because it was an either or and it was easier for a towbar fitter to install .......
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the point i am trying to make is if a warning did not need to be fitted it would not be fitted because as you have stated they would take the easy option
A car that rapid flashes the indicator warns you of a failed bulb ...... that's enough. If it doesn't do that, you need something else, whether that's a light or buzzer is up to you or the fitter and how much effort he want to put into fit one or the other.
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A car that rapid flashes the indicator warns you of a failed bulb ...... that's enough. If it doesn't do that, you need something else, whether that's a light or buzzer is up to you or the fitter and how much effort he want to put into fit one or the other
the point i am trying to make is if a warning did not need to be fitted it would not be fitted because as you have stated they would take the easy option
A car that rapid flashes the indicator warns you of a failed bulb ...... that's enough. If it doesn't do that, you need something else, whether that's a light or buzzer is up to you or the fitter and how much effort he want to put into fit one or the other.
I hope you are 100% certain of that because i am not
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In all honesty I've never introduced a fault into my car/trailer to see what happens, just assumed it'll rapid flash as per all it needs to do. But there's no poxy buzzer or provision on my dash for a trailer tell tale. Just for you, some time over the next
few days I'll connect a trailer board to my car with a duff indicator bulb & see what happens.0 -
i am not 100% certain that what yousay is right regarding the law
http://www.rightconnections.co.uk/rear-mounted-buzzer
Tell-tale Operating tell-tale mandatory for front and rear direction indicator lamps. It may be visual or auditory or both. If it is visual it shall be a flashing light which, at least in the event of the malfunction of any of the front or rear
direction indicator lamps, is either extinguished, or remains alight without flashing,
or shows a marked change of frequency (double speed flash). If it is entirely auditory it shall be clearly audible and shall show a marked change of frequency, at least in the event of the malfunction of any one of the direction indicator
lamps.There's more but it's gobbledegook
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there is no mention of a trailer there. It may be the rule for a solo carr
How's this then 3.5.8
It's getting a bit late in the day http://www.caravanclub.co.uk/media/1022790/towbar-wiring-mo.pdf
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i read this bit
Others operate by altering the standard flasher function to an alternative ‘warning’ signal if a fault is detected. This latter option is in essence an extension of the car’s built-in bulb failure monitoring system, and is increasingly the most common option
especially with vehicle manufacturer-supplied wiring kits, and vehicle-specific aftermarket wiring kits. Note that this tell-tale function is sometimes neglected when the towbar wiring is fitted – this is illegal0 -
In all honesty I've never introduced a fault into my car/trailer to see what happens, just assumed it'll rapid flash as per all it needs to do. But there's no poxy buzzer or provision on my dash for a trailer tell tale. Just for you, some time over the next few days I'll connect a trailer board to my car with a duff indicator bulb & see what happens.
If I can intervene MM, that's where the potential (as in theoretical) issue is. I can't recall from the earler messages whether your caravan has the latest LED lights, but if it has, with your car's configuration you would wish for a rapid flash on your dash to signal a failed bulb unit. For that to happen, the car needs to know that the caravan is there in order for it to know that a bulb has failed. On modern (2013+) cars, it seems the car can cope with knowing that there is a caravan with LED lights, and you'll get what you want. On older cars, because the designers assumed filament bulbs with associated current draw, it can be pot-luck, and it's ultimately only if you have a bulb fail (or if you simulate that - but it'd need to be a trailer board with LED lights) that you'd know your car falls into that category. Therefore, with an unmodified LED van you could (theoretically) be in breach of the legislation.
Now, because my LR complies with the law the other way around (by flashing a tell-tale when it is working), I can be absolutely certain that the stock/unmodifield Bailey LED electrics weren't visible to the car. It worked the LED indicators, just didn't know it was doing so because the current draw was so low. (Other LRs are different - in the extreme case simply connecting the caravan caused a nice disco at the back of the van as all the lights pulsed).
I've used the word "theoretically" because the chances of a failure of an LED bulb are lower (but not impossible, there's always the scope for dodgy connections). So you may feel that it really isn't anything to worry about as the scenario of the legal req'd kicking in would never apply. The OP didn't, and to be honest I don't think it really fair to have a go at him because his risk perception differed to yours.
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I wasn't having a go at him. He assumed the law said that you'd to have a buzzer of sorts to tell you that your trailer indicators were doing so .... you don't, you just need to know they're working by one method or another.
You say that your LR flashed the led's but didn't know it was doing so ...... I'd have thought that would have thrown up a fault
but .....Just for DaveT I attached my trailer board today ... obviously normal bulbs. When the turn bulb was 'blown' my car told me by a message on the dash - as it would solo and also a combined rapid/rapid/rapid/slow/slow flash of the dash's telltale but flashed
the car's indicators as normal similar to when a an idicator has blown solo.My car is 07, has CANbus to the lights .... I've no idea how it would cope with led's
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We have a Mercedes C class which is the canbus system as most cars are these days and can say from experience that LEDs are not recognised by the cars system, this can be rectified quite easily by fitting canbus LEDs which have a resistor fitted inside them
that is if they are actual bulbs and not just LEDs incorporated in the housing. Our van had been retro fitted with LEDs which must have worked ok for its first owner but not for us so they were replaced with the resistor type and give no more problems. The
system on the Merc when a bulb/LED fails tells you via dashboard message, "signal light failure, back up lamp on" and it uses a different bulb within the cluster. We wouldnt have half the problems if our cars weren't dependant on computers.0 -
I wasn't having a go at him. He assumed the law said that you'd to have a buzzer of sorts to tell you that your trailer indicators were doing so .... you don't, you just need to know they're working by one method or another.
You say that your LR flashed the led's but didn't know it was doing so ...... I'd have thought that would have thrown up a fault
but .....Just for DaveT I attached my trailer board today ... obviously normal bulbs. When the turn bulb was 'blown' my car told me by a message on the dash - as it would solo and also a combined rapid/rapid/rapid/slow/slow flash of the dash's telltale but flashed
the car's indicators as normal similar to when a an idicator has blown solo.My car is 07, has CANbus to the lights .... I've no idea how it would cope with led's
And that's where we get back to the original; I'd wager if fitted to a U3 with an LED bulb gone, there's a good chance your car wouldn't flash rapidly. It's a minefield, which is why Bailey gave up.
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We have a Mercedes C class which is the canbus system as most cars are these days and can say from experience that LEDs are not recognised by the cars system, this can be rectified quite easily by fitting canbus LEDs which have a resistor fitted inside them
that is if they are actual bulbs and not just LEDs incorporated in the housing. Our van had been retro fitted with LEDs which must have worked ok for its first owner but not for us so they were replaced with the resistor type and give no more problems. The
system on the Merc when a bulb/LED fails tells you via dashboard message, "signal light failure, back up lamp on" and it uses a different bulb within the cluster. We wouldnt have half the problems if our cars weren't dependant on computers.Yes,I believe the effect of the box fitted by Bailey to rectify (before they gave up on LEDs} and the Sargent one used by Swift is to put a resistive load on the indictor circuit. Don't know why they don't use resistive LEDs as you describe - from memory
I think each "bulb" is about 12 LEDs in a matrix of similar size to a standard bulb.0 -
There is a legal definition of how many individual LEDs can go & maintain legality..I can't be bothered looking it up though :-)
Far more likely is the connections to/electronics on the bulb "unit".
However, the (much better imho) LR trailer tell tale system has saved me when I had a dodgy connection on the towing electrics plug before now - absence of tell tale when I indicated told me something was wrong. Had that already been absent because the caravan
electrics didn't support it, I wouldn't have known a connection had come off en-route...0 -
There is a legal definition of how many individual LEDs can go & maintain legality..I can't be bothered looking it up though :-)
Far more likely is the connections to/electronics on the bulb "unit".
However, the (much better imho) LR trailer tell tale system has saved me when I had a dodgy connection on the towing electrics plug before now - absence of tell tale when I indicated told me something was wrong. Had that already been absent because the caravan
electrics didn't support it, I wouldn't have known a connection had come off en-route...My Vauxhall used to have a brake light check, and when he caravan was plugged in, a box of electrickery used to extend the check to the trailer ...... very useful. It also had a telltale for the indicators. It doesn't appear that the Merc can check my
trailer brake lights though.0 -
The Mercedes will tell you if you have a left or right trailer tail lamp failure and trailer brake light failure. With regard to the LEDs the ones which had been retro fitted and the ones with resistors which I fitted were the same cap sizes and almost identical
dimensions to the original tungsten lamps, what I can't work out is why produce both types because the resistor ones appear to work ok in non bulb failure type systems.0 -
The Mercedes will tell you if you have a left or right trailer tail lamp failure and trailer brake light failure. ......
I removed the stop/tail lamp from my trailer board but couldn't see anything on the dash from the back of the car that suggested a bulb failure
but
I was concentrating on the indicators
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The Mercedes will tell you if you have a left or right trailer tail lamp failure and trailer brake light failure. ......
I removed the stop/tail lamp from my trailer board but couldn't see anything on the dash from the back of the car that suggested a bulb failure
but
I was concentrating on the indicatorsWrite your comments here...just quoting from the owners handbook! Our tow bar and electrics were factory fitted so dont know for certain if that makes a difference.
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......just quoting from the owners handbook! ....
You read the manual????????
Write your comments here...yep it's what happens when you're a tight fisted Yorkshireman, if I've paid for something it has to be used before we use it for propping the bed up!!!
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