Head light tail light help needed

[thestig]

Good morning:

After discovering the hard way that LEDs have polarity, I replaced the tail light LED bulbs on my son-in-law's Heng Long full function Walker Bulldog.

Instead of soldering the leads directly to the board, I installed a plug connector, and connected the leads to the head light LED.

My problem is now that when I start up the tank with the plug connected, the tail lights flash but the head light does not. When I disconnect the plug, the head light works, but the tail lights do not.

Can anyone tell me what needs to be done to have them both work together? I'm guessing it is something simple, but obviously electronics are my weak suit.

Thanks for your time and help.

Frank

[MichaelC]

You need a resistor at one if not both so that there is power going to both. Otherwise in your case your tail lights LED is sucking up all the juice and no power is going to the front. I guess in this case you just need resistor at the tail light. I think the most common one is 100 ohm.

MichaelC

[thestig]

MichaelC:

Thanks for the advice, I'll give it a try.

Frank

[MichaelC]

Frank,

My apology but just re-reading the post, your HL Bulldog's tail light should already have resistors attached to them. Unless when you do your re-wiring you skip the resistor connection, both the headlight and the tailight should work together.

If you can post a picture of your new wiring that would be great.

MichaelC

[thestig]

Mike:

Thanks for the follow up.

But, evidently when I replaced the bulbs I did not replace the resistors. Based on your recommendation I added one, and the lights now function perfectly.

Thanks again for the advice.

Frank

[MichaelC]

Glad that I can help out.

Mike.

[PainlessWolf]

Good Morning,
I'm glad that the light issue got sorted. ;o) An interesting point is that on the Mato Sherman I am working on, after installing a 2.4 GHz board, I had to remove the resistors to get the lights to work. Just some weird info that might be useful some day.
regards,
Painless

[MichaelC]

Painless, just reading all the crazy threads on Mato Sherman, and this is another one. Didn't realize that there is that much difference. Good to know.