Updating PY21W to LED DRL

[Daggerpie]

Originally Posted by snapdragon

The 1156 with resistors I have seen are not as bright, maybe 120 lumens.
The brightest I have seen without are 450-480 lumens.

Can any one of you kind fellas point me in the right direction for some straight swap DRL's with the built in resistor? I came past a black D3 with LED DRL's on the M40 the other day and it looked so much better than hazy yellow glow.

I've had a quick scan on eBay but there's a minefield of ones out there so any pointers for some nice bright ones that don't require modding or re-coding much appreciated..

[notorious]

Originally Posted by snapdragon

Has anyone done similar or have thoughts?

I had these bulbs in rear lights for some time.

They are bright, but not reliable. In half a year they will literally fall apart into pieces since those 'faces' with LEDs are just glued to each other.

Haven't see hi quality LED bulbs yet. Now testing these with LEDs invented by US company called CREE. They are super bright and very good for rear lights, but I'm still concerned by assembly quality in China.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2X-1156-BA...item3ccd09ac2b

[snapdragon]

The ones I have at the moment are by HSUN, they are advertised as 810 Lumens, which is double the 21w originals.
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/2pcs-...746949907.html
$40 a pair, but these are by far the best I have tried, in that the light is very white and full spectrum like cars with OE LED DRLs. You can easily see them reflected on the back of the car in front, even in sunny weather.
The overall look is just like the W12, if not better.
I think it's important to have the side-firing LEDs to bounce off the reflector as well as the front-mounted one.
They get too hot to touch, about 85˚c when I measured them in the house.
They still throw faulty bulb errors though, so I really have to swap the wire for the sidelight wire but hate working at the back of these headlights as it's cramped.

[Daggerpie]

Thanks for the link, they sound perfect apart from throwing up the dreaded fault light. Any pointers to ones with the built in resistors??

[sloss]

I've tried a lot of ones telling me they won't give the fault but so far all do.

The ones in my car just now are fairly good, have a resistor loads in parallel and still throw the fault but I only need to turn the lights on manually and it goes away! Weird!

I've seen a VCDS coding where you can Code the side lights as LED or Resistance bulbs but not found a Code for the DLRs.

There will be a way......

[snapdragon]

Originally Posted by Daggerpie

Thanks for the link, they sound perfect apart from throwing up the dreaded fault light. Any pointers to ones with the built in resistors??

I don't think it's possible to make them in 1156 form factor - the 15W resistors would probably be bigger than the bulb itself.

The trouble with high output LED/SMDs is that even though they use less electricity, they get very hot with conductive heat, whereas traditional bulbs do use more electricity and are less efficient, but most of the heat is wasted as infra-red heat which is harmlessly radiated into the surroundings. That's why you will never see an LED-powered rotisserie.

The SMDs are already at their thermal design limits without the additional heat of resistors.

The new A8 LED headlamps have complex air-ducts, heat-sinks and fans inside because of the heat buildup in the high power LEDs.


The wasted heat of a halogen bulb shines out, but unhealthily builds up in the substrate in an LED.

[PsYcHe]

I didn't see the rotisserie option on the price list.. has that just been added? If so, I'm off to Audi to order a D4!!

[Daggerpie]

Originally Posted by snapdragon

I don't think it's possible to make them in 1156 form factor - the 15W resistors would probably be bigger than the bulb itself.

The trouble with high output LED/SMDs is that even though they use less electricity, they get very hot with conductive heat, whereas traditional bulbs do use more electricity and are less efficient, but most of the heat is wasted as infra-red heat which is harmlessly radiated into the surroundings. That's why you will never see an LED-powered rotisserie.

The SMDs are already at their thermal design limits without the additional heat of resistors.

The new A8 LED headlamps have complex air-ducts, heat-sinks and fans inside because of the heat buildup in the high power LEDs.


The wasted heat of a halogen bulb shines out, but unhealthily builds up in the substrate in an LED.

Interesting stuff..cheers!

[snapdragon]

Finally sorted mine out.
I put a 5" peice of wire with solder-tinned ends between the red wire on the sidelight connector and the white wire on the DRL socket.
Tinning the ends of the wire made it a tight fit in the crevice in the plug.
Then I used a small cable tie to hold each end in place by tieing it to the wire it slips up the side of.
I then recoded for LED DRL in [09].
Now the sidelight and DRL both come on in the day, so I replaced the sidelight bulb for any old W5W LED. The DRL 21W was replaced with a superbright HSUN LED.
At night, they go dim so as not to dazzle other road users, just like the later models W12.

[limoncello]

sounds good, not sure i understand exactly what to do, which lights do you have?
i see the pic of the red wire and the link wire together, is this the new LED that replaces the small yellowy bulb in the top of the headlamp.

and the one your connecting to is the main bulb in that same headlamp

but you have changed them both for LEDS is that correct