That’s it. The bulb is supposed to draw, say, 3A? Set your threshold to, say, 2A. Anything less probably means the bulb is out. So if your LEDs draw 1A, you need to pull at least another 1A to put it over that threshold. Preferably more if you want to be “safe”.
So you splice an external resistor across the wires, or you burn up at least that much heat on the board itself.
One notable exception is the Mini Cooper. Those will occasionally throw an error even if the bulb is still lit! If your bulb is supposed to draw 3A, as the bulb ages and is on its way out, the thinner filament will have a higher resistance and draw less current, say, 2.8A. So you “preemptively” set your threshold to 2.9A to get to the bulb before it goes “pouf!”, even if that annoying error indicates that the “bad” bulb is the one that’s still lit.
Nah, you can desolder them, or as I’ve seen, dremel them out like a bad cavity.
And resistors. Like parallelled chip-resistors on cheap-ass driver boards, there are usually a few resistors in parallel doing the dirty work.
Map lights? Unless you go driving with them on, it shouldn’t be a problem, should it?
I’ve got a “console” of switches in front of the sunroof, controls for the sunroof itself and sunshade, doodads for a programmable garage-door opener, other stuff. I’ve seen lights in that area, which I’m guessing is what you’ve got.
Hmm. Depending if the bulbs are loaded sideways, or socket-up, might make a diff. If sideways, not much you can do. if socket-up, you can get a low-profile bulb with a top-firing emitter, and use the “hole” it goes into to be its own natural shield.
Lookit these:
https://www.fasttech.com/p/3278100
Won’t be as bright as “bright” bulbs, but they’re sure low-profile!
