HELP: DRL controller acting crazy

ovendenk · Post by **ovendenk** » February 25th, 2007, 9:17 pm

hey,

just finished the drl mod by putting the bulbs in the clear corners and i tried testing it, but the damn DRL relay is flickering on and off like mad. i grounded the relay and it stopped flickering, so i know it's the controller sending a bad ground signal to the relay.

i'm using the existing headlight wiring since i'm building a set of projectors and won't need the wiring any more. i just skipped the power resistor since the red/white out wire from the resistor is the same wire as the highbeam wire. i just used the highbeam +12v and the black GND wires on each side to power the bulbs. even when i reconnect the resistor it doesn't fix the problem.

any thoughts??? thanks in advance.

ovendenk · Post by **ovendenk** » February 25th, 2007, 10:53 pm

never mind, figured it out. controller has a highbeam input to turn off DRL's, so they turned on, then controller thought high beams were on, so turned off and then back on they went and so on and so forth.

here's a pic of the wire that needs to be cut.

and here's the outcome.

PATDIESEL · Post by **PATDIESEL** » February 26th, 2007, 3:14 pm

Don't you hate when you post a question, the nquickly realize that just missed the obvios and figure it out quickly, then feel like an a-- for asking...
Only from The Oven will get such.

jk bro
Good find on the wiring, it would have been awefully difficult for anyone to tell you how to fix without the wiring diagram for the DRLs.

ovendenk · Post by **ovendenk** » February 26th, 2007, 8:32 pm

oh pat, you can be so mean.

btw, not so easy. ya, i have the electrical manual as well, but the DRL page shows no connection between the controller and the high beam input (just that they are the same color wire). had to verify with multimeter that they were in fact connected and figured that the controller shut off the DRL's if either the lows OR the highs were on and had separate wires for both.

just an educated guess that turned out to be correct i guess. i'm just glad that they're working now and looking good. btw, 922 bulbs are REALLY bright. haven't tried 921 bulbs though because the write up said to use 922's.

PATDIESEL · Post by **PATDIESEL** » February 26th, 2007, 9:36 pm

I was totally kidding. It would not be an easy thing to diagnose. Thought you would read into that, sorry. Posts are hard to relate emotion into.
As for the brightness- be careful Toyota had a recall on the 922s in the Celica b/c they said they were bright enough to blind someone looking at the car and miss the turn signal as a result. (for what it is worth since yours look pretty bright). The bulbs were replaced, but I don't know what bulb they replaced it with.
Hope there is no love loss on the earlier post. Just giving you a hard time about a problem that would have taken me a few hours with a volt meter to figure out if I were in your shoes.

ovendenk · Post by **ovendenk** » February 26th, 2007, 11:38 pm

PATDIESEL wrote:I was totally kidding. It would not be an easy thing to diagnose. Thought you would read into that, sorry. Posts are hard to relate emotion into.
As for the brightness- be careful Toyota had a recall on the 922s in the Celica b/c they said they were bright enough to blind someone looking at the car and miss the turn signal as a result. (for what it is worth since yours look pretty bright). The bulbs were replaced, but I don't know what bulb they replaced it with.
Hope there is no love loss on the earlier post. Just giving you a hard time about a problem that would have taken me a few hours with a volt meter to figure out if I were in your shoes.

pat, i guess you didn't see my little "razz" emoticon. this site can be so funny sometimes. a lot of people read too much into people's comments and take a negative view most of the time. i'm not one of those people, but i might poke fun in return.

anyways.... ya, going to try and see if there's another bulb to lessen the brightness. it's not that bad in person though. i can clearly see the idicator when they are on.

one problem though that i just found out. cutting that wire interupts the signal to illuminate the high beam indicator on the dash. damn, back to the drawing boards.

IslandMx3 · Post by **IslandMx3** » June 10th, 2007, 6:18 pm

not much of an electrical guy so this may or may not be a stupid question. but will cutting the red/white wire underneath the passenger side part of the dash disable the drl's? or just disable the high beam?

ovendenk · Post by **ovendenk** » June 12th, 2007, 1:24 am

sorry, i should've posted a follow-up post. cutting the red/white wire is a BAD thing to do. cutting it causes the drl relay to go berserk. basically the best way to rewire is the same way luc st-pierre's write up says to and that's cutting the green wire going into the power resistor and connecting it as your +ve for the new drl bulbs and using any old ground (preferably the parking light ground if you're using the void in the indicator housings).

that's what i've since done and have had no issue since. it's annoying running a wire fron the back right corner to the new bulbs, but it's your best option.