I've been doing a lot of LED research lately (considering automotive, motorcycle and other accent lighting applications for around the house). I decided to dive into the world of LED's with a pretty straight forward application by doing some day-time running lights. I installed them last night so I thought I'd better post it! My original idea was to use two flexible LED strips along the side and lower edges of the outer grilles (on the inside) but eventually decided on these: http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-bin/ … _specs.htm. Some install notes for anyone who is curious: There wasn't quite enough clearance behind the smaller outer grilles without removing some plastic on the back side of the grille, which I ultimately decided not to do, nor was there a good place to mount them even if clearance wasn't an issue. Therefore I installed the DRL's behind the main grille. There is just enough clearance without needing to to trim and I had a straightforward mounting location. To maintain full control of when the lights are on and off I wired an independent toggle switch. I still need to clean up the wiring under the hood but overall I'm pretty stoked with how they turned out. I ran an inline 5 amp fuse on the positive side of the wiring between the battery and the switch. Here's a link to all the pics. https://picasaweb.google.com/1146146522 … directlink I'd like to think I'm still on the front end of the DRL LED trend although I've seen some others around town. We all know Audi has been doing this for a while but I haven't seen a whole lot of others out there. Feedback and opinions welcome!
Drivers expect DRLs to be in, or very close to, the headlight housing. They also don't appear to be very bright in the daylight. If I saw that on the street I'd just think someone mounted up some dim fogs in a not so great location. I can't find lumen ratings for the Audi but it appears the 200-300 range is about the norm. It's hard to judge brightness in pics. What's the lumen output on each DRL? More of a FYI but DRLs aren't mandatory in the US. You find it on most cars here simply because it's easier for the manufacturer to leave it then take it out.
I can't disagree about the spacing not being ideal.... you can read my response to this same question on the Saab9-2x forum where I posted a similar thread http://saab92x.com/viewtopic.php?pid=634526#p634526 But to summerize, originally planned to mount behind the outside grilles but did not have the clearance I needed w/out doing some "custom" work to the back of each grille. I had enough clearance and a good mounting point w/out the need to cut or trim the back of the factory grille to mount them at their current location. I'm not sure about the 200-300 Lumens for Audi DRL... but it depends on what type of LED Audi is using. If you go to superbrightled's website (or similar online LED vendor) and go to the component LED section, it gives the Lumen's rating for all the different bulb types they sell. Also the first link in my original post takes to you the spec page for my lights, but to answer your question each LED is rated at 10 Lumens. Here are the full specs for the component LED's in my DRL's (note: each light has 8 of these): 5mm Cool White Piranha LED(Part Number: HF5-W5590UPC: 847781013009) * Color Temperature: 7750 * Color: Cool White * LED Package: 5 mm Piranha * Lens Color: Clear * Lumen: 10 Lumen * Millicandela: 5500mcd * Viewing Angle: 90 degree * Wattage: 0.064 Watts I did ask for feedback, but I have to respectfully disagree with your assessment that they look like dim fog lights without having seen them in person....but to each their own and I appreciate the feedback none the less.
Did more checking and the current EU regs for 2011 and newer cars is 400 lumens for DRLs. Like I said it's hard to judge brightness in pictures that's why I asked about the lumen output. But 80 lumens per side is dim compared to 200+ in the newer Audis.
Wow, I had no idea the requirement for total light output for DRL's was so high across the pond. Then again I never looked either..... all kidding aside it's definitely a valid question, especially when you are trying to assess how they will look.
Audi uses a different style of LED, probably in the 70-140 or more lumen per LED. Heat has to be addressed with those kind of high output LEDs. I went for LED fog lights since I don't use DRLs
That is the min spec, max was something crazy like 12000. The folks over at Lightwerkz have a plug and play kit rated at 800 a side. Maybe that'll give you ideas for v2. Heat shouldn't be an issue. For example, the 800 lumen lights above draw 6 watts. Of that I bet less then 1 watt of that is heat.
