digi-tails troubleshooting

[ddavisart]

I purchased some digi-tails years back from their website for my 73 firebird and finally getting around to installing them. Been trying to get in touch with them to get some help troubleshooting an issue but zero luck. I'm hoping somebody on here might have an idea what is going on or if they are faulty.

Both turn signals flash (driver & passenger) at the same time no matter if the lever is switched to left or right. The Ididit steering column is putting out the correct signal for each from the column.


I checked the signals at each rear taillight plug and I'm getting this below.


turn signal lever neutral produces this on both sides (no signals on)
orange - power
black - ground
yellow - ground
green - ground
brown - ground


turn signal lever left produces this on both sides
orange -power
black - ground
yellow - power flashing
green - ground flashing
brown - power flashing


turn signal lever right produces this on both sides
orange - power
black - ground
yellow - ground flashing
green - power flashing
brown - power flashing


I have the driver's side wired to the passenger like the instructions suggest (diagram below) but how does it differentiate between driver/passenger when they are wired together like this? Thanks

[Alwhite00]

Did they work with incandescent bulbs? I ended up using a electronic flasher with a dedicated ground to get mine to work.

I thought the same thing on the wiring. Doesn't seem like it would work but it does.

[ddavisart]

The car has new wiring so I went up with all led bulbs at the time and the led digi panels for the tails. I'm using a no load electronic led flasher with the ground wire. The flasher seems to be doing its job and flashing, but I'm just getting both lights flashing at the same time no matter if the signal lever is set to left turn or right. I guess in my head i was thinking this might happen seeing the wiring diagram, unless something is suppose to be happening in each led panel to tell one not to fire. In that case, I don't think that is happening.

[CapSS92]

Do the fronts flash as well? Try removing the front bulbs and see what happens. I had a friend with a similar issue but using incandescent bulbs. Turns out he had a bad bulb that was shorting out and making the parking lights flash. You can also try unhooking one side at a time on the rears and see if the issue goes away. Oh yeah check the grounds on both sides as well. Keep us updated on what you find.

Alex

[dhutton]

Problems like this are usually caused by bad grounds. Check every one, front and back.

Don

[ddavisart]

The fronts are flashing also, same deal. I have a couple of terminal blocks mounted that I'm using for grounding that read correctly on a meter. Will poke around some more this weekend and try some more testing. Maybe it is a weird bulb. Will test some more. Thanks guys

[ddavisart]

Rechecked all the grounds and they were all solid. Ran a test on the signal switch and all signals are coming out like it should. I started pulling bulbs all around the car and testing but didn't really get anywhere with it. I'm going to try different led bulbs around the car. Ran across a video of one guy showing how some led bulbs don't work like a diode and can cause back feed to the other side. Got me wondering if that is the issue. Looks like his bulbs are even the same as mine, so ordered some new ones to try.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_x8hhbYxSA

[CapSS92]

Pull all the bulbs except for the taillights and see what happens.

Alex

[Hotwire]

LED stands for Light Emitting Diode. Not sure if that's your culprit. Diodes are basically one way streets for current flow. I may be missing something but...

All the wiring is new? Is the steering column new / has it been tested before? I recently wired up a 53 GMC show truck with a new flaming river column and the turn signal switch was bad right out of the box. To verify I picked up a random turn signal switch from napa and plugged it in to the wiring harness. Truck came to me mostly assembled but I had to do wiring bumper to bumper with a LOT of unknowns. Used a brand new painless universal truck harness and was going absolutely NUTS trying to figure out why the turn signals weren't operating correctly.



*EDIT* Watched part of the video, and yes if you're using cheap amazon LED bulbs, that could possible be the culprit. As others above have mentioned, pull all the bulbs and just connect digitails to rule them out.

[ddavisart]

The bulbs seem to be the culprit. I'm not sure where I originally got them since the project got shelved for a long stretch, but apparently they were not good ones. I thought I had pulled all the bulbs besides the led tail panels when testing, but looking last night one of the front signal bulbs was still in sitting outside its housing. Pulled that one and the tail lights work fine. Put it back in and the tail lights blink both sides.



Man, all the loops i went through trying to figure this one out and it was a bulb, go figure. Thanks guys!