Hi

While ordering my Roomster, I noticed that it does not have much in way of interior lights, which could be a pain as we often travel at night. I am going to fix this by putiing LED strips in the boot, HP LEDs for reading lights, and reflective strips on the inside of door panels. However, I suspect CanBus bulb monitoring might get in the way of my plans.

So a question to you, has anyone disabled the CanBus bulb monitoring completely, ie both soft/ignition on and the "warm"monitoring via VCDS? Given what I heard about Valeo dipped beam projectors and saw for myself on another car (Fiesta), I might put dipped beam HID kit as the first mod on the car.

I read on Fabia forum that centre interior lights are monitored, is that true for Roomster too?

I also plan to put 5x brake lights / 2x rear fogs mod with 2x BA15s 2W HP 90deg LEDs in the fog fixtures,.

Are rear fog light bulbs monitored by BCM/J519? (basically, if you disconnect one, is there a warning on dashboard?). And when just sidelights are on, are fogs and/or stops also running at reduced power to get the "Skoda double C" rear light shape, or is it done using just sidelight bulbs.

Finally, what about Daytime Running Lights on UK Roomsters nowadays? Do they come from factory with DRLs off or on, if on, which lights are used, dipped beam or seaprate bulbs / LEDs ?

So many questions,... so much time to wait before Roomster arrives

For my self, I can say on my Roomster all interior lights + boot light + number plates lights are not monitored for bulb warnings/failure.

See

http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/228067-converted-to-roomster

And

http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/229399-led-number-plate-light

But to my knowledge all interior lights are not monitored by any CANBUS self diagnostics system.

All external light are CANBUS monitored lights.

I do not have Maxi-dot dashboard. But I have try tried to replace sidelights / positionlight to LED that should be CANBUS ready, but they all failed.

For now I have stopped all my experiment for LED for sidelights. But if you are trying, then use red LED were the light should be red.

Thanks for reply. So it seems that monitoring is more or less like on the Mk1 Superb I have.

Replacing position lights is not advisable anyway, for two reasons:

• Front sidelights replaced with LEDs heat up when main beam is on. Most LEDs have plastic at the back, which vaporizes and fouls up main beam reflector. Cleaning this is hard or impossible due to no access.
  
• Rear sidelights fitted with LEDs get frosted inside in winter, and snow does not fall off them because there is not enough heat produced (1-2W instead of 5W).
  

The big question is, is rear fog light monitored? I need both rear fogs fitted with 2W LEDs. It makes sense because when wired as stop+fog the LEDs light up visibly (~0.5s) quicker than the bulbs in stop lights.

Still wondering about what is lit up for the DRLs for the UK, I thought they were mandatory across EU now?

Great advice on the sidelights and LED :-)

The DRL on my Roomster in Denmark is the main light.

I do not have fog lights. I thought about installing Philips DayLight LED lights.

Still wondering about what is lit up for the DRLs for the UK, I thought they were mandatory across EU now?

If you have front fogs then the DRL's are in these and there is an on/off switch in the fuse box so you can turn them on/off very easily. (well that is for the MY 2012 cars). I believe in other discussions the thing which determines if the car must have them is the date the model was type approved. As the Roomster has been around for a few years they are not mandatory, just optional.

As a side note I recently had my windscreen replaced and this caused the bulb warning light to come on. There were no bulbs out just a knocked connector (which meant the reversing lights were not working). This means the warning is triggered by any wiring fault as well as any blown bulb. The other thing to note is any legislation on changing and checking blown bulbs because if you do disable the warning system you might not pass an MOT.

Thanks, I did order front fogs so I do hope they come with the DRL switch in the fuse box as it means far less hassle for me.

Though if the switch is there, it probably means I won't be able to put my own switches on the fuse box cover....and I need at least 12V sockets selectable 30/75x (always on/on with ignition), plus perhaps reversing lights on 7V-8V (via gearbox switch, so no chance of forgetting it for driving) to aid loading/unloading towbar carrier at night (assuming I can persuade BCM to sit quiet ).

Edited 5 March, 201214 yr by dieselV6

Got the new Roomie, here is what I found:

Rear fog lights - only one connected, not monitored, I was able to run 1x 3W and 2x3W LEDs there without problems. Two fogs on my car now, all it took was 1 repair wire and hours of taking panels off luggage area though that was also for towbar job.

Cabin lights - nothing monitored apart from luggage area light which seems to behave better with a bulb, though does not produce any warning. You can still plug your LED strips in parallel with the light, though.

Warning! Short circuits are monitored and will disable entire cabin lighting until reset with VCDS, so be careful inserting these metal jacketed LEDs...

All cabin lights now LEDs.

front DRLs - if you have front fogs ordered, they come wired for DRLs, though the plug to the back of DRL switch was taken out. I found the Skoda DRLs to be waaaaay to strong, more like ricer Honda fog lights. So they're replaced now with 2x 90deg 3W white round lensed LEDs that fit well with front end looks.

Photos at some point when I get some more time, I'll probably start another thread on these mods.

Edited 8 May, 201214 yr by dieselV6