Electronic Flasher

[MrMarquis]

I've been looking for an electronic flasher circuit for the car to start replacing lights with LEDs. The mechanical one that is in the car says it's a 325. I've looked in the auto parts stores around me, and they can't give me an answer to what replacement and none of the ones they have look like they'd plug up. What exactly am I looking for?

[85crownHPP]

Should be a regular 552 flasher - electronic ones should be right next to the regular ones.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/552-Turn-Signal-ELECTRONIC-Flasher-Relay-EF552_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQhashZitem1e59592745QQitemZ130348033861QQptZMotorsQ5fCarQ5fTruckQ5fPartsQ5fAccessories

[86GmLsCoupe]

I have one of those in my car, I like the sound they make better and they're supposed to last longer.

[MrMarquis]

Alrighty thanks. I was looking for the same prong configuration, mine has three or four. But now I know what I need.

[91waggin]

About electronic flashers:
I put the one that Pete pictured above in my car. I have LEDs on the brake lights and the front turn signals, as well as for the "arrow" lights in the instrument cluster. Before I changed the ones in the instrument cluster for LEDs, the flasher worked fine, since the incandescent bulbs in the dashboard drew enough power. But with LEDs in the cluster, there wasn't enough current to operate one side at a time. 4-way flasher worked fine, but a single turn signal didn't work. I had to put one load resistor per front turn signal, and that ended up drawing enough current to work properly.

tldr version:
If you put LEDs on the turn signals, keep the incandescent bulbs in the instrument cluster "arrow" lights.

[GM_Guy]

Grote 44891 LED flasher. Visit a Napa, they have similar/same LED flashers available. The wire you see gets grounded.

[no attaching pics in an edit... HEY admin, any changing this restriction? Seems I do this all too often... Pic coming up in a following message]

Alex.

[91grandmarquis]

What is the difference between the electric flasher and non electric flasher?

[GM_Guy]

The non-electric you will only find in the Flinstone mobile. ;-)

The Tridon "electronic" flasher in post two gets its name from the fact theres a capacitor and some other electronic bits in it. It will work with one normal lamp in the circuit.

An LED flasher is all electronic and internally sets the flash rate regardless of what is attached to it.

Alex.

[GM_Guy]

Grote 44891 LED flasher.

[91waggin]

Cool on the LED flasher. However, I would have to hack some wiring up to use that, since the flasher is on 90-91 fuse panels, and there's only space for the round one, especially if you want to put the cover back on it.

[GM_Guy]

No hacking needed. If it is too tall to get the cover on, two male spade lugs, two female spade lugs, two lengths of wire to use as an extension and tywrap the flasher under the dash somewhere.

Alex.

[MrMarquis]

Where would be a good place to ground that to? And that would eliminate the use of load resistors?

[86VickyLX]

Where would be a good place to ground that to? And that would eliminate the use of load resistors?

Yes. It will 'flash' regardless if there's anything is hooked up/ or blown bulb etc. You could ground that to one of the unused ports on the ground bus under the dash.

[MrMarquis]

Coolness. I'll have to go look around under the dash again...

[91waggin]

No hacking needed. If it is too tall to get the cover on, two male spade lugs, two female spade lugs, two lengths of wire to use as an extension and tywrap the flasher under the dash somewhere.

Alex.

I call that hacking up some wiring. Not necessarily hacking up factory wiring, but you'd have to figure something out. All I meant was that it's not plug and play.