Begin with wires in trunk, where things move around.

Make sure you have voltage or not. Unlikely both bulbs went at once, but too easy to check.

Digital volt/multimeter is what you want.

Can ck fuses with it too.

 

Already performed all that...fuses checked, connectors all checked and this is a 2010 elise so its led's not bulbs. Car is like brand new condition so nothing is oxidized or worn. even tried disconnecting all connectors and reconnecting. All lights, turn signals and parking lights work. Only thing the rear lights do not do is go brighter when brake pedal is depressed but my 3rd center brake light does. Unless the brake light switch is has two separate contacts where it initiates the 3rd brake light and the rear separately i am lost. Now i don't remember but the two inside lights are brighter than the two outside lights or so it seems.

 

What is the voltage at the lights?

 

All the lights work...all led's are on when car is on. There's no voltage issue. ALL the led's are on. Just the lights that suppose to go brighter when the brake is pressed doesn't. The third brake light lights up fine when brake pedal is pressed. I'll do a video shortly.

 

As stated all the tail light work. just doesn't get brighter when brake pedal is pressed. The inside lights are brighter but the outside lights are normal brightness. I cant remember if that's how it suppose to be or maybe for some reason its stuck in brake depression mode if that makes any sense but the third brake light isn't constantly on and works normally.

 

someone else same issue...

http://www.lotustalk.com/forums/f322/inner-brake-lights-stay-107888/

 

Found an old post...

"All sorted now. Was missing a small resistor lead that needs fitting in the high level LED brake light, this restricts the current in the circuit to the rear lights so they only light up bright when braking. They're available from http://www.bell-colv...amp;Chapter=E02"

Looks like a resistor went bad

 

and another...

http://www.lotustalk.com/forums/f322/led-tail-light-conversion-problem-84318/

 

This seems to be the fix. Thanks for your suggestions. Looks like it is a bad resistor...

Inline resistors for inner lamps (A121M0041F)

 

Seems like you found a bit of gold.

I thought you could check the voltage when brake pedal was down, but I know zip about LEDs.

 

yes apparently since the part is bad it is brighter as if when the brake is depressed. we will see. i didnt find any info online till now.

 

OK...i have finally found the solution and possibly an answer to this issue of similar problems...

I have a gullwing top that came with a 3rd led brake light. Now 2006 and up have led tail lights and led 3rd brake light. Since the top came out in 2005 it isn't retrofitted with built in resistors. So since i put on my gullwing top and didn't swap the 3rd brake light to the newer version that has the resistor that was on my car originally it's what caused the issue. If one resistor in the loop is bad (total of 3) it causes the tail brake lights to stay bright which makes it seem not to work. So just before i ordered the new resistors i did some reading and found out that the third brake light also has a resistor. So i disconnected the third brake light that came with the top and snagged the original third brake light off the old top and boom. Now my tail brake lights work.

So if anyone does the conversion or installs a gullwing top and your car is 2006 or newer is NOT to use the 3rd brake light that comes with the top. Use your factory 3rd brake light. If you do the conversion of the 2005 lotus lights to led you need to order the 3 proper resistors or else the inside lights will stay bright thus disabling the brake light to function properly. This has been a learning experience and thanks to this forum, lotus wiring schematics and general research i finally found my goof up.

2005 lotus elise/exige conversion to led needs...

(info taken off this site)
-Outer lamps (B121M0028F)
-Inner lamps (B121M0029F)
-Ballasts (A121M0035F)
-Flasher (A121M6016F)
-Inline resistors for ballasts(B121M0040F)
-Inline resistors for inner lamps (A121M0041F)
-Inline resistor for 3rd break light (A121M0040F) <---this would have fixed my 3rd brake light but i just swapped to my original 3rd brake light which has the resistor built in

Thanks glb for offering assistance.

 

Good job!

 

@DDJ74 - You are awarded 16,000,000 bonus points for diagnosing an unusual problem and posting the solution for the rest of us!

Glen

 

I took a pic of both 3rd brake lights so you can see the difference between the 2005 and the 2006 and higher models. You can see in the pic the version with the resistor has a thicker cord versus the other one. To my knowledge if you do the 2005 conversion to the newer led tail lights you have to buy the inline resistor to make it work correctly on the 3rd brake light or you will have issues like i did. I noticed few had this issue back in the day on this forum. In my case i just had to remove the 3rd brake light that came with my top and install the 3rd brake light that came originally on my car. Anyways maybe this will help others in the future if they decide to do a led tail light swap on their 2005 elise/exige models and don't run into the same similar issues i had.

 

Sorry to bring out an old thread. I also saw someone else posting that they had LED bulbs to replace the factory ones that this info might have helped.

My question is, do you know what resistor value it is?

Either way, I found a fix to this problem. I will be uploading the video later on today!

 

Here is the solution :