Interference from Flood LED's

I just installed flood led's in my tail lights, now every time I hit the brake my radio stations get a lot of static, so much some don't even come in. It does not affect the CD/MP3 player function, so I know its not through the wiring itself. I think that the led's are putting out an rf signal that is interefering with my antenna. Any suggestions on how to repair the issue?

haha, nah thats just aliens tracking you

i can't really say because i never thought LEDs put out any kind of signal

if i think of something i'll come back tho

I don't see any reason why a flood LED's would cause interference on your radio.. I mean, even if your antenna or antenna wire was next to the tail lights, I'm.. uhm, at a loss . This happens on FM also, right ? Not just AM ? (I have heard LED interference on AM but not typically within the range of commercial broadcasts) .

did you maybe pull a wire from its place when putting in these new lights,

i can see your radio getting messed up if you had some business doing it, they might of messed a wire up?

have no idea.
but sounds like a cool idea.
care to snap a few pictures of them?

I tried AM and it worked fine. Its just on the FM stations. I double check all the wiring, everything looks fine. I was thinking that there might be a transformer inside or some other kind of circuitry that is producing the rf signal. I might try to block it with some shielding material.

Here are some quick pics with the running lights and brake lights. Need to take some better pics soon

Wait, when you said LED floods I thought you meant the single LED floods found at http://www.oznium.com/marine-led-light . Those appear to be LED strips of some kind ? What product is that exactly ?

Cooper wrote:

Wait, when you said LED floods I thought you meant the single LED floods found at http://www.oznium.com/marine-led-light . Those appear to be LED strips of some kind ? What product is that exactly ?

The floods take place of the bulbs. You can see the casing. But it does look like he also has strips.

Did you ground any leds yourself or use an existing ground? If so, how close is your ground to your antenna, and is it grounded well?

TRogers wrote:

Did you ground any leds yourself or use an existing ground? If so, how close is your ground to your antenna, and is it grounded well?

I agree,it does sound like a ground issue.

Thanks for all the replies!

Actually I have both. The strip leds are the running lights which I have no problems with, because this is the second version of these tail lights I have made (the first with just the strips as running lights). The flood leds are the brake lights. I do not have a regulator for turn signals since they are just straight brake lights.

I just used the stock grounding wire from the tail light harness. I soldered all the connections, heat shrinked and then electrical taped them. I'm not sure if the tail light ground is on the same circuit as the antenna. I guess I should try wiring a ground to the chassis near the tail lights instead of the wiring harness and see if that works.

Good idea. Give it a shot and let us know the results!

Well, bad news. I regrounded the leds and I still get interference! I guess either I have to shield them with something or get a new antenna away from the tail lights. Any other suggestions?

bpatrick wrote:

Well, bad news. I regrounded the leds and I still get interference! I guess either I have to shield them with something or get a new antenna away from the tail lights. Any other suggestions?

Hmm...heres what I would do,I would remove the factory antenna and clean underneath,where it mounts/makes contact with the metal on your quarter panel,as to assure a good contact for your antennas ground.Then if that doesn't do any good,I would try moving your ground to a different location,just to see if that makes any difference.

Just a guess here... but I'm guessing the LED floods might be more than a LED array and a current limiting resistor. I suspect that they probably have a switching circuit driving the LED, and that switching noise is feeding into your head unit.

Cartman

you can try adding some shielding to the antennae cable.

The switching circuit sounds about right, but I only get the noise with the radio (rf) not when the CD or MP3 is on, which tells me its not an issue with wiring interference with the head unit.

Unfortunately its a rear windshield antenna, fused to the glass like the rear defroster. I'll see if I can track down the ground, but I don't have high hopes.

Thanks for your suggestions

bpatrick wrote:

Unfortunately its a rear windshield antenna, fused to the glass like the rear defroster. I'll see if I can track down the ground, but I don't have high hopes. Thanks for your suggestions

Oh,I thought your antenna was mounted on the quarter panel.

Hello all,
I just sent an email to Oznium about this very problem. I installed two of these lights on my sportfishing boat. One replaced a 12V dome light in the downstairs companion way and the other on the rear deck. They not destroyed the FM radio signal, but they also caused lots of static the Marine VHF radio. The Marine VHF is a major safety item on any boat. I sure hope they have a fix. It is not a ground problem as I have lots of leds already operating on the vessel. By the way grounding on a boat sitting in saltwater is an easy thing. I suspect these leds are putting out a substantial amount of RF

Ok I just took this to the next step. I carried a 12V battery to the boat. Now this battery has NO wiring to the boat. When I hooked up an led flood the FM radio has so much interference I could hardly hear it. I also tried the spot version; same problem. It is raining very hard; but my next project is to see if these cause interference with the navigation systems. GPS and Loran signals are very important save operation. This boat has a 4 kilowatt open array radar and that causes NO interferences of any kind!

I sure hope Oznium has a solution.

Thanks for the info CBHaws.

I did some testing on my own, my floods don't effect my radio until I move about an inch close to it. If I move the wiring close to the radio I receive some interference, if I move the actual flood unit towards the radio it drowns out with interference.

This is definitely a problem, and I also have floods (two pairs) on my boat that haven't been wired in yet.

I took one pair of those floods and flushed them in to a piece of board which has since been refinished, so if those floods do the same thing I'll have to lose my hours of work put into that board by tearing them out....


But Oznium is aware of this problem now, and they are working hard to figure it out.

On some computer cables (mini stereo jacks-like the one to the speakers) have a plastic covered magnet on one end of the cable. Maybe something like that might help?

Yeah, it would be nice if Oznium could calculate the correct RF choke needed (or something of the sort) and send it out to fix existing floods. I reeeeeaaaally don't want to tear up my project to replace floods. :)


Maybe it's possible *shrug*

Hey thanks for confirming my results. I have temporarily fixed my problem by getting an aftermarket powered antenna and mounting it near the front of the car. It works for most stations but a few pick up the RF signals. It would be great to go back to my stock antenna at some point. Keep me updated on what you guys try.

so let me get this straight, these cause major interference with the radio? cus i was thinking of running these as my front running lights/turn signals (4 of them)

DJTricky wrote:

so let me get this straight, these cause major interference with the radio? cus i was thinking of running these as my front running lights/turn signals (4 of them)

I have some in my turn signals and they do not give off any interference. I hooked it up to existing wiring with no ill effect!

D A N N Y

Oznium is looking into the RF interference, so hopefully they get back to us with something. It maybe just Subaru's and their grounding issues. The only way to see is to try it. Good luck!

I just finished an install on my boat of the LED Floods also, same problem with the FM Radio interference. I am disgusted at this point because I had a custom lightbar machined out of stainless steel to house these lights.

FM reception is horrible with the LED's lit, CD works fine. All NEW wiring so no grounding/bad connection issues, everything soldered.

Motor not running, just setting in the driveway, as soon as I turn on the LED Floods the radio reception becomes unusable!

The stereo and associated wiring are far away from the LED lighting also.

Any fix yet Oznium??????

I am pretty disgusted as I stated earlier because I cannot undo all of the custom work I have done!!!!

Hello diy_darryl, and welcome to the forum. I agree it is quite troublesome.

We've experimented with a number of ideas, and it seems the only thing that helps so far is covering the LED Floods with an RF shielding foil.

The factory is a bit difficult to work with regarding a fix. But we're trying to push them for a fix.

We're also working on another marine lighting product that will sell for around $140. It is a 6W flood light with a larger footprint.

The RF shielding works, and I also found it also helps to cut the flood wiring back as far as you can and run your own wiring to the flood.

The main unit also puts out some rf though, luckily mine are under the swim deck and at the tip of the boat. For the tip I first fabricated a stainless holder as well, but later switched to teak to match the wood trim seen elsewhere

I'm hoping I don't get any noticeable interference when all of my wiring is finished.



A picture of a flood I tested with rf shielding (with the wire next to the radio wrapped in rf shielding it did not cause any interference),

Well I am pretty much out of luck I suppose. No way I can remove and wrap 8 LEDS with foil in that tight space, plus my wiring also is ran through the legs of my tower, dressed up nice, sheathed in snakeskin also. Will post pics when I can.

If you can picture my install.....I used a 2x5 inch, 42 inch long piece of rectangular stainless steel tubing hanging from a fishing tower, like you would see on a 4WD truck so to speak. The tube is hanging with the narrow side vertical. I have 6 Blue LED Floods mounted on this 2 inch surface to light up my fishing rods and 2 Red LED Floods facing downward to light the deck.

These lights are mounted from the INSIDE with just the nosecone protruding, which was a PITA by the way. Those mounting tolerances are TIGHT!

Now to throw another curve..........There is so much EMF that when I turn on the Blue Floods the Red Floods flicker. They share a common ground and are switched individually by their own power wire. That should not be an issue in a DC circuit.

I might be able to eliminate the flicker by placing a diode on the negative leg of the Red Floods, hoping that the induced EMF will not be enough to overcome the conduction threshold of the diode.

I hope this can be fixed. Thanks for looking into the matter.

I see.

I hear you with mounting woes, I completely flush mounted mine into the teak. Was a PITA indeed. Had to step down the size of hole and use the correct depth to get them mounted just flush, and that left a lip for the bottom of the flood to attach to.


We're in the process now of refinishing and then redoing the pin striping, so that part doesn't look so great in the pictures,

Does anyone know if the Marine LED Spot Lights have the same issue?

I am assuming they do.

At least they have the same footprint so all of my custom work would not be for naught!

Not that I am going to remove these lights after all of the expense and hours of custom work, but it will aggravate me to no end everytime I turn those lights on and lose my radio.

I still need to see if they also affect my VHF Radio.........that is DEFINATELY an issue that will cause me more concern.

Idea to bounce around? My lights are all installed into a stainless steel tube, i.e. surrounded by metal (except for the nosecone of course). What If I tied my ground wire to the tube, would it not then possibly shunt the spurious RF emissions to ground and solve my problem?

Grasping at straws here.

The marine spots are the same product as far as I know.

I'm not sure that a better/different ground will help, in my testing I have tried all of it. The only thing to help so far was the shielding (which I understand is not an option for you)


I would still like to know if an RF Choke would work. That is something that can be easily installed at the end of your wiring (similar to a diode or resistor if I am thinking of the right thing).

I don't have access to any chokes, I only had access to shielding here through my workplace so I haven't got to try one yet. I wouldn't be sure what to try anyway, I'm sure there are many different specs of chokes out there.

My thoughts were that in my installation, the housing itself is an enclosed (mostly) metal structure which IS NOT tied to ground. I was thinking that if I grounded it, it might have the same effect as the shielding tape and shunt the emissions to ground so they aren't 'broadcast' into the air and picked up by my antenna.

I'll give it a try as soon as I get a chance. Easy enough to try anyway.

Does it effect other radios as well or just the radio(s) mounted in the boat? Try bringing a portable radio on the boat to see if it is effected. Maybe you could use it as a noise (RF) finder by walking around until you find the noisiest spot.

I tested it with a portable radio, as seen in my picture of the shielding in use. I'm sure it will effect my Ship to Shore radio as well if it gets close enough, no doubt in my mind. Luckily mine are far enough away that it probably won't effect my radio at all *fingers crossed*

Mine are probably 7-8 feet away from my radio so hope it works out for you. It obviously did not work for me.

Just talked to one of our engineers. These things may have possibly been tried already:

Ferrite core placed over power wire

Capacitor to ground, from power wire to shunt AC portion of signal (the RF) on the line, microfarad value not calculated though

Grounding my enclosure as I suggested might help and also have the same effect of a ferrite core


Will cross my fingers and try some of these things this weekend and will post results.

I only have two in front and two in back, and with one testing by hand on my bench, I only had to pull it about 12 inches away from the radio before I couldn't hear any interference.

Okay, just got back from Gateway Electronics.

Going to try:

Ferrite Core clamped over Power AND Ground wire together

and/or

1 microfarad capacitor between positive and negative wires

and/or

diode installed between positive and negative wires (reverse biased)

and/or

Grounding my housing

These are the easy fixes, they say we can get way more elaborate if needed......updates to follow.

Awesome! Let us know how it goes.