Battery indicator light on after dashboard LED swap

[starclassic]

This past weekend I completed Phase 1 of a dashboard LED swap for my '97 SR5. I swapped the majority of the dashboard lights for new LEDs from superbrightleds.com, and followed the great writeups on the process from [MENTION=98153]MStudt[/MENTION] and [MENTION=57546]4-Ripcord[/MENTION].

The day after I did the swap, my battery indicator light came on. I'm assuming this is because there is now significantly less draw due to the new LEDs. Electrical is not my strong suit, and I'm wondering what I need to do to troubleshoot/fix this issue? Thanks in advance for your help.

Battery indicator light after LED swap

You might also have noticed that the cruise control indicator appears to be ON—it is not. I have to figure out how to block the gauge cluster lights from getting behind it and making it look like it's on. I've read that wax paper is a good diffuser, but to get in there won't I have to take the gauge cluster all the way apart? Don't I want to avoid that?

 

[19963.4lsr5]

Did you put a LED in the battery position? If so it needs to be a regular bulb. That bulb is part of the charging circuit.


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[starclassic]

Did you put a LED in the battery position? If so it needs to be a regular bulb. That bulb is part of the charging circuit.

Winner! That's great—I did put an LED in there. I'll swap the original incandescent back in. Thanks a ton!

 

[19963.4lsr5]

Winner! That's great—I did put an LED in there. I'll swap the original incandescent back in. Thanks a ton!

Did you put a resistor with that led? Or just put the led in the socket.


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[starclassic]

Did you put a resistor with that led? Or just put the led in the socket.

I just swapped out the bulb for an LED ... no resistor.

 

[TheDurk]

I just swapped out the bulb for an LED ... no resistor.

Yeah, be careful with that one. Like the man said above, it's part of the charging circuit. The excite current to get the alt charging passes through that lamp. If the resistance is increased by using an LED, the alt. may not be able to charge, and that's why it won't light up.