Experimental Study and Design to Overcome the Problem of Flickering Issues in Electrical Components in Automotive Vehicles 2017-01-0013

Flickering problems in automotive vehicles have been observed from long time. After assessing numerous vehicles it was observed that whenever the hazard lights in a vehicle are activated, it leads to flickering problems in lights/small electrical components. This paper is to provide the solution for flickering snags in electrical components in a vehicle. The lights that are analyzed to be flickering/wavering are generally small loads such as LEDs in the bus roof area, small parking lamps, LEDs used in instrument clusters, cabin lamps, etc. The flickering in lights can turn out to be very unappealing at certain times. This absurd behavior can lead to extreme discomfort to the passengers and can also be a source of major distraction to the driver. This study presents the design & development for a vehicle platform & implementation that assesses the problem. Because of abrupt behavior of flasher circuits, voltage surges are observed, leading to flickering problems. This prevalent problem can be solved by adopting a streamlined process in the architecture by proper load distribution, appropriate grounding, filter circuits, selection of appropriate fuses, methods of reducing the voltage drops & operation of electrical components in defined voltage regions. These conceptualized methods are already tested and validated in the vehicles with intended results.