2003~2008 Modifying the stock blinker to handle LED bulbs from an Electrical Engineer

:
2018 Mazda CX-9 GT
WARNING: This modification will remove blown bulb detection from your car. The turn signals will NO LONGER flash fast to indicate a blown bulb. While I try and dispense good advice, it's up to you to use it as you see fit. I am not responsible for any injury to yourself or others, damage to your car or other property, if your dog runs away or your wife cheats on you, or any other undesirable consequences of your actions. Please familiarize yourself with your own vehicle and the modifications you undertake to it.

I have decided to replace all bulbs in my Mazda 6 with LEDs since I had several bulbs out anyway.

LED bulbs have a good couple benefits over incandescent bulbs.
They're brighter and they come to full brightness much faster, cutting down reaction time for drivers flanking you. (Better safety)
They consume much less power and they almost never burn out. (Less maintenance)

That last bit makes them incompatible with stock turn signal flasher units. Because they consume such little power, the stock flasher unit sees this as a damaged bulb and flashes faster to alert the driver to replace the bulb.

Some people buy resistors to add to the turn signal circuit. This adds cost and usually splicing of factory wiring to the project.

Nobody I could find sells an LED compatible plug and play flasher unit for the 1st gen Mazda so I made the stock unit work with LEDs.

First, remove the flasher from its stock location... Behind the instrument cluster.

VCahjzu.jpg


It's a rather small unit and has two clips on either side.

Ccmnh8k.jpg

gy7z4C0.jpg

92obI8E.jpg


Undoing those two clips and pulling on the connector, you'll be rewarded with a small circuit board.

8eESrjg.jpg


There is a chip on that board that controls the entire works. It's a U2044B dual output flasher.

Here,we have the data sheet from a manufacturer of that chip.

79FlR4c.jpg

J47Zlq0.jpg

2lPC4u9.jpg

BtSmbrD.jpg

pO2GZFt.jpg

mmh9b6d.jpg


Pay particular attention to Page 3, specifically Pin #8. Lamp Outage Detection.

Find Pin #8 on the chip and isolate it from the circuit.

I made a small cut in the circuit board trace with a knife as shown here:

2Ouffyv.jpg


Use an ohm meter to test between Pin #8 of the chip and the adjacent resistor (labeled as 203) to make sure you have successfully cut the trace. There should be an open circuit between those two components.

Bam. No more hyper flashing.
 
Back