Does any body know if using CAN BUS decoders can lead to problems with the BCM?
Several LED sellers have told me to be careful as it could "short" the BCM.
those "sellers" are exactly that "sellers" and they dont know what they are talking about when it comes to vehicle electrical systems.
the term "can bus decoder" is a misnomer because the "can bus decoder" for a headlight does not actually interface with the canbus or decode anything.
what these "can bus decoders" do is simply put a resistive load on the wires that plug into the headlight to emulate a halogen bulb because the bcm monitors the load on the power wires for each bulb and when the load or current falls below a certain threshold it triggers a check headlight message.
led bulbs and hid ballasts pull less current than a halogen bulb so that message will trigger if there is no device generating a synthetic load and that is all these so called "can bus decoders" do.
if something was to short on the headlight wires it would blow the fuse not the bcm because that is what the system is designed to do in the event of a short.
for reference...
this is what it looks like inside of a
headlight "can bus decoder"
this is what a
real can bus decoder looks like...
there are other types but this type decodes/encodes messages within the vehicles can to interface with a aftermarket radio.
devices like this are
not used on headlights.
unnecessary nerdy stuff...
many real can bus decoders need to have chips like this to interface with the vehicles can.
another popular one used in obd diagnostic devices sold on ebay is the elm327