Trucklite Tail light and front blinker longevity?

[welldigger]

Ok guys, here's the deal. My truck came with the trucklite omnivolts all the way around. Sounds great right? It was one of those great little "perks" that came already equiped on my truck......except only one works. Now don't get me wrong. I'm happy with my truck other than ironing out a few kinks but I was prepared for that. So this is whats going on, Front driver side blinker barely flickers. Front passenger blinker works as it should. Driver side tail light totally dead. Not even blackouts work. Passenger tail light works when it feels like it. So logically I must have a short or bad ground.....Nope. Getting power to all connectors. OK bad ground? Cleaned all grounds to bare metal and still same results....Pretty frustrated at this point. So I decide to get stupid simple with it. I remove the driver side front light and hook it up on the passenger side (the only one that works correctly). I turn on my blinkers and it still barely flickers. Ok so now I know for sure what I was suspecting. My high speed low drag LED tailights and blinkers have just about all crapped out on me.

Ok rant over, Here are my questions:

1. Has anyone else experienced this problem with these lights?

2. Is there any way to repair these or am I just gonna have to replace them?

3. Is it honestly worth spending approx. $170 a light for LED's or am I just as well off spending $40 bucks on old-fashioned lights?

 

[cattlerepairman]

You are not alone. Both my "good, tested" TruckLite LED headlights and my GROTE LED taillights are not error-free. I just bit the bullet and replaced the LED headlights because I really like them.

I have a taillight that has 50% of LEDs working. This is still brighter than the stock incandescent option. I hooked up a good, separate ground for each light.

I am not aware of anyone who has found a way to fix these LED lights, front or back. If they work, great, if not, they are pretty much toast.

 

[Ferroequinologist]

First thing I would do is check for the ground wire, and make sure it is clean and grounding good. The old lights ground through the bucket, the LED's have to have a seperate ground wire.

They might not have been hooked up correctly on your truck.

 

[gimpyrobb]

Yup, grounds will reek havoc! I know a guy that burned out 2 of the rear led tail lights cause of ground issues.

 

[Ford Mechanic]

I had a little different problem with my lights but I found a rub. A little lower than where it comes out of the firewall, there was a a piece of steel that the harness was sitting on and it had cut into the insulation. That's all it took to take out my left turn signals. Just a FYI

 

[shannondeese]

I have three truck light LED headlights sitting in my garage because of bad grounds. They would start to send morse code while I was driving then shut down. They burnt out something inside of them due to a bad ground. I'm hanging on to them though hoping that somebody will come up with a way to fix them for cheaper than the cost of new ones.

 

[welldigger]

I am getting power at all of the connectors and after cleaning all grounds I have good continuity between the ground wire and the frame. As I said I hooked up a bad light where the only working light was hooked up and it still didn't work. 3 of my lights are bad. So I went ahead and ordered 4 old fashioned light fixtures so I can have lights again. The way I figure it bulbs are cheap and easy to replace. Now I realize that the LED lights are a 1 piece sealed unit but that's not going to stop me and my buddy from cracking one open anyways. Whats it gonna hurt? They are broke and worthless anyways. And my buddy is a wizard with electronics. So If we discover a way to resurrect the Trucklite LEDS then I will report back with my findings and of course piuctures.

 

[Cycletek]

I thought the Trucklights had a lifetime guarantee?

 

[gimpyrobb]

Welldigger, even if you can't fix them, please post pics of the dissection. I think it would be interesting.

 

[Cycletek]

This is their warranty page from their catalog..........

https://www.truck-lite.com/webapp/w...alog/WarrantyInfo.jsp&storeId=10001&langId=-1

 

[73m819]

This is their warranty page from their catalog..........

https://www.truck-lite.com/webapp/w...alog/WarrantyInfo.jsp&storeId=10001&langId=-1

In another words WORTHLESS

 

[gimpyrobb]

HAHA, yeah, does not extend to off-road vehicles!

 

[welldigger]

I cannot warranty the lights because they came on my truck when I purchased it. So I'm kinda sol on that. But an interesting discovery i have made so far is 4 brand new composite lights shipped costs the same as 1 Trucklite LED fixture. I'm really questioning things here if I'm not so alone in the LED crapping out arena. Especially as much as they cost. As said though I will post pictures of my dissection. Hopefully I will figure out whats wrong. If not then my curiosity will be satisfied regardless.

 

[welldigger]

Ok guys I dissected the worst of my trucklite omnivolts. The news is good and bad. They are completely sealed in epoxy. This is good because water can't get in. The bad news is I cannot repair them. I would also imagine the trucklite led head lights are built the same way. If someone has a headlight that is dead they are welcome to send it to me and I will find out but my guess is when these things die they are dead.

 

[Cleveland Iron]

Uhmmmm, dumb question... Are those surface mount LEDs? You might be able to figure out how they failed if you could put 2 or 3 volts ( forward voltage ) across the singular LEDs. Just a thought because we are just doing autopsy work...

 

[welldigger]

Unfortunately no they are not on the surface. Only the light emitting portion of the led is on the surface. Everything that is conductive is buried in epoxy. I simply cannot conceive a good way to remove the epoxy either. It is solid as a rock. I drilled into it a little ways and I just don't think it is possible to remove any of the epoxy without the risk of damaging something.

 

[Carlo]

Wow I keep hearing more and more negative things about the LED headlights. I have been dreaming of these but now even if I had the money I don't think I would buy them!

 

[welldigger]

If you can find them for a deal then it is worth giving them a try. I mean this for the head lights and the turn signals. I would not pay full price. I don't believe the quality is there to justify the cost.

 

[gimpyrobb]

So in post #14 with the pics, you show you tried to cut the back off. There is no other pics because you couldn't get it apart? I figured as much, but wanted to be sure.

 

[welldigger]

So in post #14 with the pics, you show you tried to cut the back off. There is no other pics because you couldn't get it apart? I figured as much, but wanted to be sure.

I actually decided to stop hacking at the backside because I started hitting the circuit board. I had to change my approach. I didn't want to since cutting on the sides is visible whereas from the back it could be hidden inside the bucket. I probably could get in from The back if I were to do another.

Basically once I discovered everything was buried in a concrete hard epoxy I just stopped. I wasn't really sure what to do about the epoxy. I guess I shoulda tried anyways but I was afriad the amount of heat it would require to melt the expoxy would start melting other things. Such as the leds themselves or the housing. So im kinda stumped there.

I'm open to suggestions since I have 2 more I can experiment on.