Hey there everyone. First time poster here, as I cant seem to find a solution to my problem. I have a 2008 lr2, and I found one of those LED strip tailgate light bars for fairly cheap and thought it would look decent mounted on my bumper, as It only connects through the 4 pin trailer connector. However, the strip just pulses when plugged in. After some research, it seems the issue is caused by LEDs not drawing as much power. I would just like to know if theres a solution to this. I have a local shop near me where I can buy some CANbus resistors,but I'm unsure if they're the right thing. Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

 

Its true, the cheap bars do not include the electronics to sufficiently manage the power.
Good luck. But I’d be returning it.

 

If you can easily access the wiring in the light bar, you can add a resistor in parallel, any sort of cheap resistor should work, as long as it's in a weatherproof location and rated for the power. You probably need it to run at 5 maybe ten watts (to simulate an incandescent running light bulb or two), you can easily do the ohms law math for 12VDC and 5 watts.

 

You need to add a load resistor spliced across the negative and positive wires. It has to be a 50 watt load resistor otherwise they will likely melt. They get VERY hot. Here's what you can order, and make sure you find a place when you can mount them to metal to dissipate the heat.

 

That will certainly work, and the price is right.

 

but due to it being connected via the trailer connector, it has 4 wires. Would I need a resistor for each wire? (Running lights, left signal, right signal, brake)

 

The taillight bar should only have two wires, unless it also works as a signal light and a running light, instead of just a brake light. If it also has those other functions it really is going to get hairy and you should return it and get one that has the load resistors built in so you don't have to splice anything. I have a 2008 as well and it knows exactly squat about LED-anything, so either you have to splice load resistors or whatever you are connecting has to have them already.

 

The light strip I have is supposed to be meant for truck tailgates, its the Evergear 60" light strip, (https://www.princessauto.com/en/prod...ampaign=hosted) I think I'm going to give splicing in the resistors a shot. I have a 12" 4 pin harness that I'll play around with and see if I can get them on there, and just stick that between the strip and the connector on the truck. Im from canada so I had to use canadian amazon, but I found a 4 pack of resistors for only around $12 CAD. So if it doesnt work out, Im not really going to be out that much. I know this is a little unorthadox, so thank you for your patience, and I appreciate all the advice!

 

You would need a resistor between the ground and power wire for any light which exhibits the problem. If a particular light works as-is, no resistor needed.

You're basically inserting an electrical load large enough to draw similar current to an incandescent bulb.