Repairing Door Handle Ambient Lighting

[AvatarWest45]

I recently purchased a 2014 Ram 1500 Laramie, and to my surprise it came with sweet soft blue ambient lighting in the door handles and door pockets. Alas, the driver door handle seemed to have burnt out.

Before I paid the ~100 for a new bezel like other older forums suggested I decided to pull it apart and look into it. I found that there was a small 1/4 watt resistor that had burnt out. It was visibly damaged, but I verified no continuity with a meter to be sure. I input the band colors into an online calculator and figured the resistor should be 750 ohm. I found a replacement at work (there are plenty available online for cheap cheap), and replaced it. Threw it back in the door panel and Boom. All ambient lighting is now functional and only 5 minutes of work and about 5 cents worth of parts!
Here are a few photos of the assembly I took while making the repair. I could not find any posts in reference to repairing these LEDS only lots of part numbers to replace. hope this helps others with the same issue.


Working LED!

 

[PaleFlyer]

You probably should have upgraded it from a 1/4 w to something higher, (wattage is volts*amps, and higher wattage resistors just means it can handle more amps before it goes boom), and put something over those LED legs so they can't short to each other, which is probably what blew the resistor the first time. I don't trust that little plastic divider in the back of the casing to isolate the leads properly.

A metal film resistor is only a couple cents more than that carbon resistor, but can be a 1 watt in the same "size".

 

[AvatarWest45]

@PaleFlyer I totally agree with you! I wanted to upgrade to a higher rated resistor, but the shipping times were weeks out so I opted for the immediate and free fix. I considered throwing some heat shrink over the leads but I didn’t have any small enough so again I opted to just get it back in. Before I closed everything in the case I bent the leads away from each other and with how stiff the wiring is, I don’t expected them to touch from just vibrations of the vehicle. May have happened before from someone removing the door panel and pulling on the wires.
I’ll for sure go with your recommendations if any pop in the future!

 

[PaleFlyer]

@PaleFlyer I totally agree with you! I wanted to upgrade to a higher rated resistor, but the shipping times were weeks out so I opted for the immediate and free fix. I considered throwing some heat shrink over the leads but I didn’t have any small enough so again I opted to just get it back in. Before I closed everything in the case I bent the leads away from each other and with how stiff the wiring is, I don’t expected them to touch from just vibrations of the vehicle. May have happened before from someone removing the door panel and pulling on the wires.
I’ll for sure go with your recommendations if any pop in the future!

Electrical tape is better than nothing...