LEDs for automotive fog lights

As many of you know, many car makers are going to start implementing leds into headlights. I want to make a set of LED fog lights for myself. Many of you use high power LEDs for flashlights which might be suitible for this application. What would you recommend? What method should I use to focus the light? Thank you for any help!

kyazh said:

As many of you know, many car makers are going to start implementing leds into headlights. I want to make a set of LED fog lights for myself. Many of you use high power LEDs for flashlights which might be suitible for this application. What would you recommend? What method should I use to focus the light? Thank you for any help!

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Try this manufactor:http://www.hella.com/produktion/HellaUSA/WebSite/Channels/Consumers/Products/Products.jsp

larsS

I don't know your background, but this may be more involved than you think, especially if you haven't already been doing LED light fabrication and/or modding.

The amount of light that HID or halogen bulbs emit which are usually used in this application far surpass what a simple, consumer-grade LED will emit. Fog lights also have pretty sophisticated lenses and/or reflectors to throw a low, wide beam. This might be accomplished with multiple, narrow-beam LED's. Warmer, more yellow light tends to penetrate fog better while LED's more often tend toward cooler/blue tints. With LED's you also have to come up with a driver that provides the right amount of current to the LED regardless of exact voltage (say 12VDC - 16VDC), and possible multiple drivers if you're running multiple LED's.

In short, no simple task.

For the electronics side of things I have one word for you TaskLED.

As for the optics and heatsinking you're on your own.

<< The amount of light that HID or halogen bulbs emit which are usually used in this application far surpass what a simple, consumer-grade LED will emit. Fog lights also have pretty sophisticated lenses and/or reflectors to throw a low, wide beam. >>

Ditto. And I know I sound like A broken record on this type of topic, but.....Be careful with local and state regulations. You may find yourself being cited for having unapproved equipment on your vehicle and / or fail your State's inspection requirements if it has any. If the light is not distributed correctly you could also blind an oncoming driver and cause an accident. With 25+ years in the automotive profession my normal advice is for folks to stick with commercially made DOT approved equipment that meets with your location's motor vehicle code.

to match the total output of a good pair of 35W HIDs, you would need 20-30 of the brightest LEDs available.

kyazh said:

As many of you know, many car makers are going to start implementing leds into headlights

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They talk about it a lot, but there don't seem to be any actual products.

kyazh said:

I want to make a set of LED fog lights for myself. Many of you use high power LEDs for flashlights which might be suitible for this application. What would you recommend? What method should I use to focus the light?

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You should realize that if you pull this off, you will have one of the first such systems in the world. LEDs in automotive settings have been doing nicely as indicator lights, but not so good for illuminating the surroundings.

You will need to go with high power LEDs. At least one watt apiece. Nothing else is strong enough. Heat will be a concern, so you will have to come up with housings that double as heat sinks. You will have to work with reflectors or optics to shape the beam fairly tightly, and the finished unit will need to be easy to adjust, otherwise when they go out of whack you won't fix them, because it'll be too much fuss.

My preference would be to start looking for metal housings and mountings from some existing product, perhaps an existing car light that's got an OK reflector. You might tour a junkyard or two, see if anything would adapt.

If it was me, I would look into designing strips or modules, and I would run a continous line of them across the chin of the car. This would give you very even light. You might consider amber, pale yellow, or warm white, although the W.W. are not too strong. As txmatt said, you must feed them regulated current. CPF is an excellent place to pick up some sweet regulated current drivers. I have one on my car I got off CPF member "Meteor" a couple of years ago, it's been totally reliable.

There is also the observation that LED light does not seem to have the "throw" of incandescent light. We don't know why, but a number of members have observed this, so you need to have keep a rein on your expectations - you could build it all perfectly and find it still was lame, we don't know for sure, 'cause no one's done it and there aren't any commercial examples.

That being said, if you do build one, we want pix!

LED's don't have the intensity, beam quality or color rendition to be adaquately used as automotive "fog" lights.

I'm still very skeptical that they can be used in headlights.

-dan

Thanks for the responses. I'm an electrical engineer student with possible minor in illumination. I've been working with LED's for a while now and I'm familiar with PLCC, SMT, 3mm, 5mm, Flux and LUX I type LED's. I would plan to use LED's of 3watt or higher power for this application, with proper circuitry, drivers, enclosures, heat-sinking, reflectors/projectors and what ever it takes. I know most of you spend a lot of time with different types of LED's, this is why I posted this topic here. I would like to gather your opinions on which 3w+ LED would be best suitable for the task. I remember one of the members here spent a nice chunk of time analyzing certain LED's and their characteristics. I am NOT trying to develop headlights. The application is for FOG lights only. I am aware of the characteristics of FOG, therefor "warm white" LED's will be preferred. The upcoming LEXUS LS600h will have LED headlights as well as the upcoming Audi R8. From my knowledge, the Lexus uses 9 LED's per headlight housing, which would translate to 3 LED's per projector, since there are 3 projectors in each housing. This is an experimental project, where ideas turn into reality. Thank you for your help and comments.

-John

kyazh,

I sent a private message to you within CPF. I explained some things from my experience with creating a set of LED headlights for a friend. It will work, but you will have to devote some time and money to this project for it to work as planned. I discussed how there are different options and ways to attempt this in that message. There is more that I could add, but I just do not have time tonight, and I need more info about your ideas and plans. I have a thread in the "General Lighting" section of CPF. Later on, you can check it out. I think that my hosted pictures are not functioning right (the important part of the thread), but it is there. I guess the only working picture of my project is my avatar . Oh, well. Here:
https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/117661&page=1&pp=20
This is the first page, so it is early on in my planning. If we dont communicate again with our project, then good luck! It is nice seeing people want to create a powerful light using LEDs, especially for automotive use. There is more to LEDs than just super-long battery life


-Tony

I have had some user experience with automotive foglighting. I've run several additional bumper/grill mounted lights with no problems UNTIL some county cops took a real dim view (no pun intended) of GREEN LEDS as running lights as well as GREEN fog lamps (non-led). the tech specs about current etc are very important! Other applications like turn signals and brake lights are better suited for LEDs even there you'll need to address resistor issues.

Gryloc said:

kyazh,

I sent a private message to you within CPF. I explained some things from my experience with creating a set of LED headlights for a friend. It will work, but you will have to devote some time and money to this project for it to work as planned. I discussed how there are different options and ways to attempt this in that message. There is more that I could add, but I just do not have time tonight, and I need more info about your ideas and plans. I have a thread in the "General Lighting" section of CPF. Later on, you can check it out. I think that my hosted pictures are not functioning right (the important part of the thread), but it is there. I guess the only working picture of my project is my avatar . Oh, well. Here:
https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/117661&page=1&pp=20
This is the first page, so it is early on in my planning. If we dont communicate again with our project, then good luck! It is nice seeing people want to create a powerful light using LEDs, especially for automotive use. There is more to LEDs than just super-long battery life


-Tony

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Thanks alot Tony and all of those that chipped in. I skimmed through your PM but didn't thoroughly read it b/c I had class tonight. I'll read through it tomm and reply with some ideas that I have. Once again, thanks for the help!

I'm a ee engineering student also and just purchased some parts to build fog lamps on my car. Are you planning on building a new housing for the led's or are you modifying the existing lamps?

To Kyazh (and all),

I got my pictures working so you can get a better look what I did. If the pictures stop working again, just tell me or bug me. The project I did was still kind of rough, and everything looks vulnerable since they are not in an enclosure. Yeah, sorry for the long messages and posts (as well as my long headlight project thread). That is the way I am. For some reason, I cannot give quick, one line posts.


-Tony

Perhaps amber LEDs...