A far as I know new implementation of fitting city LED lights: no LE's outside of housing...
12-13-2005, 09:39 PM
#1
AudiWorld Super User
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 4,697
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
A far as I know new implementation of fitting city LED lights: no LE's outside of housing...
Preamble:
I've always hated the idea of having to run LE's when putting in LED's. I bought a pair a while ago, which are rated at 35 ohms, but haven't put them in for 2 reasons: 1) I didn't want to have wire running under the hood for routing the LE's; 2) I don't like the idea of a hot LE's sitting somewhere. A fellow AW'er, MC Hammered, thought of using a city light bulb as a current drain, which got me thinking: how high a resistor can I go without triggering the bulb-out warning? This is what I ended up with:
<img src="http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y212/akula-ssh/img_0103.jpg">
That's right, a 220 ohm resistor rated at 5W (for a good bit of over-engineering)! The idea is that at this resistance, the power dissipation is around 0.9W assuming a running voltage of 14V on the car. Such a power rating would mean a cool LE that can be placed inside the housing. Indeed, after 6 minutes the surface of the resistor is barely as warm as the ambient temperature on a hot sunny day.
Tabs are then placed inside the housing:
<img src="http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y212/akula-ssh/img_0098.jpg">
Now with the resistor connected (a bit of electrical tape for good measure):
<img src="http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y212/akula-ssh/img_0104.jpg">
And one last shot: a comparison between Philips Blue Vision city bulb and the 5-LED matrix bulb from autolumination.com (recommended by Eddie Man):
<img src="http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y212/akula-ssh/img_0108.jpg">
Cost of resistors plus tabs and connectors: ~CAD$10, which IIRC is cheaper than the corresponding LE's, which are arguably less elegant a solution
Big thanks to MC Hammered who sourced the resistors and connectors pictured! By the way, for those who care, I actually tried resistances up to 250 ohms for that's the max of the variable resistor I've got sitting around, but it was decided we err a bit on the safe side and get resistors that draw a bit more current instead of the other way around (evidently 250 ohms isn't a common commercially available resistor).
I've always hated the idea of having to run LE's when putting in LED's. I bought a pair a while ago, which are rated at 35 ohms, but haven't put them in for 2 reasons: 1) I didn't want to have wire running under the hood for routing the LE's; 2) I don't like the idea of a hot LE's sitting somewhere. A fellow AW'er, MC Hammered, thought of using a city light bulb as a current drain, which got me thinking: how high a resistor can I go without triggering the bulb-out warning? This is what I ended up with:
<img src="http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y212/akula-ssh/img_0103.jpg">
That's right, a 220 ohm resistor rated at 5W (for a good bit of over-engineering)! The idea is that at this resistance, the power dissipation is around 0.9W assuming a running voltage of 14V on the car. Such a power rating would mean a cool LE that can be placed inside the housing. Indeed, after 6 minutes the surface of the resistor is barely as warm as the ambient temperature on a hot sunny day.
Tabs are then placed inside the housing:
<img src="http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y212/akula-ssh/img_0098.jpg">
Now with the resistor connected (a bit of electrical tape for good measure):
<img src="http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y212/akula-ssh/img_0104.jpg">
And one last shot: a comparison between Philips Blue Vision city bulb and the 5-LED matrix bulb from autolumination.com (recommended by Eddie Man):
<img src="http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y212/akula-ssh/img_0108.jpg">
Cost of resistors plus tabs and connectors: ~CAD$10, which IIRC is cheaper than the corresponding LE's, which are arguably less elegant a solution
Big thanks to MC Hammered who sourced the resistors and connectors pictured! By the way, for those who care, I actually tried resistances up to 250 ohms for that's the max of the variable resistor I've got sitting around, but it was decided we err a bit on the safe side and get resistors that draw a bit more current instead of the other way around (evidently 250 ohms isn't a common commercially available resistor).
