On my last vehicle it was UBER important to disconnect the neg terminal anytime you messsed with ANYTHING electrical. It had a CANBUS system with a gabillion modules all talking to the CAN. it was too easy to burn a module.

so when i did my exLED conversion I did the same on the Ghost. However the result of disconnecting the neg for a gfew minutes was that i lost all presets, had to enter a radio code, etc. becase of that/

so my question is:

how do you handle these situations? remove neg? pull a fuse or relay? other???

and is there a way to save the presets? anyone use one of those 9volt KEEPERs that go into the lighter?




TIA,
ROB

 

i feel you, i didn't remove the negative terminal of the battery when i did my led's though..or my fogs...or headlights...but i should have. i did remove it for the intake though, and luckily, nothing has gone wrong when i didn't remove it during my led install

as for anything around it....that's a really good question, i'd be interested too, as setting everything again is pretty annoying...

 

I didn't disconnect the battery when I did my friend's SRI on his IS. Never disconnected it for any of the LED bulb changes. In hindsight, probably should've but meh...nothing went wrong so far...knock on wood.

 

thanks ed/ i was hoping we could discuss and see what others do. its a necessary evil so i try to group things so i reset a few times as possible

 

I did it yesterday as well.

I put all the leds in. i knew the visor may be polarity issue. I rewconnect and sure enough one is out, so i just Popped it out and spun it around and shoved it home/





but the point is we PROBABLY shouldn't. hence the thread/

 

i installed my LED's and HID fogs without disconnecting the battery or anything. not a problem. our system isn't like BMW's where everything is interconnected. just dont use metal near the sockets. a few members used metal and shorted the system. weird thing is, map lights, dome lights, and the entire passenger side runs on 1 fuse, while the driver side doors are another fuse, or something like that. when they shorted the system, simply reinstalled OEM bulbs, and took it to the dealer. fixed it free

 

The only time I had to disconnect the battery was to install a CAI, and afterwards I did have to re-enter my presets. This is actually something that Honda tells their techs to do in the service manual... write down the customer's presets before disconnecting the battery.

When I installed LEDs, I just made sure the switches were off, and used rubber gloves. Everything went fine, though as others have said, it might have been better to disconnect the battery first.

 

Only time I disconnected battery was to remove my headlights. I didnt when I put in my led fogs or led interior lights. I also replaced my oem hids (ended up putting oem back in) without disconnecting battery. So that defeated the purpose of disconnecting the first time when removing the headlights.

 

The only time I have every connected the negative was replace the battery. All lights and my CAI was installed with the battery LIVE.

 

and now TSXkid2010 is DEAD

 

 

well it defeats the purpose until you FRY something

just because you did something, even say a 100 times, that doesnt mean its right

 

Coming from any modern European car you learn to disconnect the battery before you do anything - including putting gas in the car

The Acura isn't quite as picky, but you can still cause some major damage. I probably wouldn't disconnect to change a bulb (except HID of course) but I would if I had to touch any wiring.

 

Honestly, the first time I had to jump start my car, i kept hitting the two clamps together cuz I thought the sparks were cool LOL...i learned my lesson from that, cuz i got i little shock when i hit them too hard...

 

It's a PITA to reset everything, but less so than resetting everything and replacing a main fuse if you do ground something out. IMHO, it's more of an issue when doing stuff engine/drivetrain related, but I pull the negative cable most of the time anyway.

If you've ever burnt a hole in a transmission cooling line with a live starter cable on the side of the road under a van, down by the river, somewhere in Louisiana, you'd want to disconnect it "just because" also.

= O

 

For LED bulb replacements, you can turn off the domes via dash switch or pull associated fuse. I'll pull the fuse for trunk or visor lights since these are always hot. Pulling a fuse is much easier than having to enter codes because of battery disconnect.