Interior Light problems - how do you replace the ballast

Hi all,

I have recently disovered that my interior light doesn't work, and after replacing the light tube, it stil doesn't work. I have confirmed that 12 v is making it to the light via multimeter, so am assuming now that the ballast is stuffed. Has anyone attempted replacing this before?

John

I think I might have the same problem , looks like a trip to the auto elec unless of course you have sorted it out

Where did you get your tube from Spannera? I got quoted $70 from a spare parts mob. Sooner go without at that price.

when mine died i bought an led strip from www.ultraleds.co.uk for about £25 disconnected the old electronics - put the 12V feed straight to the switch (it normally goes through the circuit first - the 12V you see at the switch isn't battery voltage and won't run anything) and wired the strip to the original switch then fitted it in place of the tube (with zip ties).

The strips give out the same ammount of light as the old tubes and use a fraction of the battery power - i bought the full strip lamp
( http://www.ultraleds.co.uk/32cm-white-ultra-bright-leds-tube-light-p-1348.html )

but i have just noticed they now do just the led strip for £15
( http://www.ultraleds.co.uk/warm-white-strip-830v-very-powerful-p-1867.html )

I also converted all the other lights to led too - the map lights dont come out quite as bright but they do still work ok and use hardly any power - i think the rear step and door lights are brighter though

Mine turned out to be a crook connection, but for the life of me I can't get it to stay on. It will work fine till I put the cover back on then nada. Push the connector a bit and on she comes. Then off she goes again. Don't know whether it's the switch or the connection. Dont want to bend the end of the tube in case the sucker breaks..Is the circuit board part of the light or the moon roof does anyone know.

I have the same prob Aussie Q.. thought I had sorted the dodgy connector but its still dodgy.

If you get it fixed I'd like to know how you did it.And vice versa of course

had same problem, remove tube, then circuit board, check soldered connections. mine were cracked where it joins the circuit board giving intermittant connection, resolder connections and this should fix it. good luck steve:)

That was my next go, dry solder joints. Well done mate you may have saved the day

Great response. I put the cover back on and used the 4 other lights in the back in the meantime. What is dry solder. And what exactly should I do to fix?? I can solder, and have pulled the thing apart and put it back together successfully??
Any help appreciated

Dry solder is usually where the solder joint is broken. This can be due to vibration overheating the solder joint or just a wang solder job.
If you examine closely you may notice thaat the solder end of the component moves when you wobble the component.
To fix the dodgy joint you can re-apply solder to the joint. If you have a way to remove the old solder its best to. (if you have an old piece of cable and touch it on the joint at the same time as your soldering iron you may me able to move the old solder to the cable. Alternatively borrow a solder sucker from a friendly engineer.

Jaycar in Bris or maybe even Dick Smith should have for sale solder wick. You heat up the joint and put the wick on it and it sucks the old solder off the board.
In my case tho just pulling the board out and replacing did the trick. Must have been a dodgy connection, anyway it has worked for a day or so

I couldn't see anything wrong with board either, all solder points looked good.

Good luck spannera

I also faced the same problem. I changed my HID Ballast and now all is well.

My advice is please buy a new ballast. I bought from sparkhid. The price is also reasonably well when compared to other dealers. If you have idea to buy HID Ballast please try sparkhid.

Hi.

While an old post, are you talking about this light?




These are in the middle on my van's ceiling. Be interested to know how easy these are to replace with LED, but 6W fluorescent is not a lot of power.

Cheers

I am just going through the motions with the dome, rear cabin light in my ancient 91 Super custom 4wd.. (3L engine)

I managed to get the Map lights working fully although it took a couple of goes...
Main issue is ensuring there is continuity between points, I found that the negative rail (ground / body) was part of the issue, but also a bad trace from the connector...

Points get corroded, gave them all a clean with de-oxit and created a jumper from one of the connector pins to the positive ( i think) track...

So finally, front Map lights are working, now, the issue is the rear Dome light, or AKA rear interior cabin light...

I pulled that out and the negative rail ( to ground/ body) was disconnected via a through the board solder that was broken... while I was at it I reflowed all the solder joints with a bit of fresh solder ..

(Yes I know I should have desoldered but was just trying to see if I could get it going first...)

That allowed me to switch the lights on, but still I have no door activated option, that position of the switch doesn't worked...

I've checked continuity as much as I am able ...

I know it goes, just not open door activated ...(Either rear or side)

the only thing I'm seeing is this weird intermediary 2 pin from connector in ceiling to 3 pin on board plug.

It plugs the two into 3 pins on the board, but one of the pins doesn't get connected.

Looking at the connector, it doesn't look like it's designed to make a secure connection to this 3rd pin..
But I can't work out why on earth you would have 3 pins on the board and not use one of them. |

On the other hand, if it goes to the same rail as the one of the other pins, why not just bridge them?

I can't figure it out....

Any advice greatly appreciated ...

Thanks,
Quinn