LED Flasher Relay

[Lord Popgun]

Well Hardy, here is why.

I decided to do a little investigation so I removed my left front turn signal bulb.

I then selected the left blinker. I got hyperflashing.

I then metered the voltage on the socket. With the turn signals off and just running lights on the voltage measured 4.5v. When blinking it would go to a much higher level. A digital meter does not respond fast enough to see the exact voltage before it goes off and on while blinking. I’d need to put my scope on it. My meter would only show 8.5 or so volts before the off part of the blink cycle.

So what is happening to you is that there is ~4.5v all the time and your LEDs aren’t running right on that. Then when the relay starts switching the 12v they do.

And now we know that if any of us, including me, had been smart enough to just LOOK, we could have seen the running lights are less bright than when signaling.